Warne and Tendulkar take cricket to USA

The event is being organised by Leverage Agency, which is a sports and entertainment firm headed by Chief Executive Officer Ben Sturner.

Cricket legends Sachin Tendulkar and Shane Warne’s dream to take cricket to uncharted destinations will turn into reality this November when the two stalwarts, along with 26 other legendary ex-cricketers, toss the coin in New York, Los Angeles and Houston to commence the inaugural All Star Twenty20 series.

“You’ll only learn things if you give them a try”, Tendulkar told Time.

“I never thought we would bring cricket to America”. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and the game was a sellout and made us (Sachin and Warne) think why couldn’t retired cricketers get together for something like this. “What’s all the fuss about?”

On October 6, 2015, Sachin Tendulkar said, “We want to leave an impression behind”. To play this Three T20 exhibition, baseball stadiums are converted into cricket stadiums. Tendulkar said the idea is to popularise the game in various parts of the world.

A few of the other players in action for this series will include Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Ajit Agarkar from India, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Glenn McGrath and Brad Haddin from Australia, South Africa’s Jacques Kallis, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Jonty Rhodes and Allan Donald, England’s Graeme Swann and Michael Vaughan, Brian Lara, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose from the West Indies, Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara and Muttiah Muralitharan apart from Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Saqlain Mushtaq, and Moin Khan from Pakistan.

To accomplish this task, a pitch specialist from New Zealand has been hired to develop drop-in pitches that will be used for the games.

Besides hoping to fill up ballparks, the players plan to conduct clinics in each stop to teach Americans about cricket.

Tour organisers are hopeful all three stadiums will sell out, with cricket’s current fanbase in the country estimated to be around 15 million. “So many people have followed the careers of these players and people world over will get to see their heroes”, Tendulkar said claiming overwhelming response from the fans back in the US.