ICC XI beat ACC Asian XI in first tsunami relief game

Darren Gough announced his decision to retire from all charity games after he was belted around the park in his 8 overs. This in spite of the fact that the ICC-XI beat the ACC-XI by a huge margin. Both sides resembled Pakistan in terms of the number of captains in the side (7 out of the ICC XI 11 have captained their country earlier while the number for the Asian XI was 6). Ponting continued his great form from the test series against Pakistan to top-score with 115. Lara helped himself to a half-century while Cairns scored a typically swashbuckling 69 in less than 50 balls. Fleming and Vettori threw their bats around at the end and helped the ICC XI reach 344 in 50 overs. McGrath went in ahead of Hayden and Fleming and promoptly got out first ball. But he can always rightly claim that he did so in a one-day international. For the ACC XI, Zaheer was the best bowler on show, snapping up 2/46. Razzaq, Kumble and Murali were taken to the cleaners while Sehwag did a decent job with his off-breaks.

In response, the ACC Asian XI started off positively (you expect that when Jayasuriya and Sehwag are opening!), with both openers motoring along at more than a run-a-ball. Gough came in for some harsh treatment while McGrath wasnt his parsimonious self. After the openers got out, the game was more or less gone from the Asian XI's grasp, given that there were no hitters left in the batting order. Ganguly struggled for a while and Youhana didnt even last long enough to struggle. Dravid and Sangakkara scored briskly, but the task was really beyond them. Dravid was unbeaten on 75(71). Ponting was (obviously) declared the man of the match.

More than 14 million Australian dollars were raised during the game with more set to come in after the online auctions for this game's memorabilia end. But could it have been more had the game actually not been an official ODI?

Peter English chronicles earlier attempts at playing World XI matches.