By Sudeshna Sarkar
Kathmandu(IANS) : After evolving from Tests to one-dayers and Twenty20, cricket is now going to be on a new high — Mount Everest.
Three British teams of professional and amateur players are heading for the base camp of the world’s highest peak to play a tournament and set the record for taking cricket to a new height.
The playground is the frozen Gorak Shep Glacier at a height of 5,184 m (17,000 ft) above sea level, with blustering winds and a temperature that can dip lower than minus 10 degrees Celsius.
The Everest summit is at 8,848 m, jutting out of what is known as the Death Zone — the region above 8,000 m where even breathing becomes an arduous battle due to the lack of oxygen in the air.
Organised by the Professional Cricketers’ Association, the matchless Everest matches will see some modifications. Each team has six players and the matches will be for five overs each.
The known names in the teams include British county players Nick Compton, Graham Napier, Ryan Cummins and Steve Patterson.
The unusual tourney is being played to raise funds for cricketers who have fallen upon bad times.
Although the games are expected to start from Monday, the Nepal government is yet to be informed officially.
“We welcome the game, it brings positive publicity,” said Ang Chhiring Sherpa, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, which is entrusted with promoting Nepal’s mountain tourism.
“However, we wish people trying to set new records would also seek the prior approval of the government authorities,” he said.
Sherpa also warned that playing the matches at that height was a “risky business”.
“Though the players would get acclimatised, the game requires a lot of physical effort, like running, which could be dangerous at that height,” he told IANS.
In the last one month alone, two French tourists died while trekking in the Annapurna region. It is suspected that they died due to respiratory problems in the high altitude.
Since 1953, when Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgey Sherpa became the first men to conquer Mt. Everest, the world’s greatest mountain has become the hunting grounds of ingenious record-seekers.
People have tied the knot on the summit, stripped, and released books and music albums.
Even the Gorakh Shep glacier has become a much-sought-after ‘stadium’.
Only last month, a group of cancer survivors, musicians and mountaineers held the world’s highest gig there to raise money for Nepal’s sole cancer hospital.