High Altitude Cricket On Mount Everest
This report was written by CBS News London producer Mimi Spillane.
It is the best answer to "why bother" I have seen in a long time. "Because it's there" just doesn't begin to express the reasons 50 intrepid cricket players and fans (and medics – oxygen where they were heading is a third less than what it is at sea level) trekked up Mt. Everest to play a game of something called Twenty20 cricket at 17,000 feet.
A little personal background … I have lived in London for ten years, and my understanding of the game is about one degree better than it was when I got here. For some reason the rules of the game seem indecipherable to Americans despite its vague similarity to baseball (people with bats and ball running around a field). I'll never forget driving back from a shooting a story here some years ago, with everyone else in the car intently focused on the radio and "match" coverage, when I heard the score…something like 246 to 4. What!!?? To me, in a game, when you score a run or make a goal or basket you get 6 points, tops. How do you get to 246???
Anyway, I think it has something to do with how many times you run between wickets (the sticks in the ground). Apologies to the many countries around the world where the game is loved.
Back to Mt. Everest.
Two teams took the names of the first men to make it to the top of Mt. Everest, New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay. The goal: set the world's record for playing a field game at the highest altitude. They did it --although Guinness will have to verify it. But since there is no previous record holder for highest altitude for a sporting event I'd say the teams have succeeded.
It was reportedly a highly contested game, with team Hillary beating team Tenzing by 36 runs with six balls remaining. Some of you will know what that means.
The hope was to raise $365,000 for two charities: the Himalayan Trust set up by Hillary to support the Sherpas and a U.K. charity.
There isn't just a monetary value to this though. Spreading goodwill is also a goal, as the pros taught the game to children on the way up and will donate the gear used in the match to a local village as they make their way back down the mountain.
So why bother? Take a look at the pictures, add them to what seems like only good motives … that's why.
Gareth Wesley batting, Alan Curr umpire, Chris Palmer Bowler
Majestic Mount Everest dwarfs the puny humans playing below
The winners: Team Hilary, named after New Zealander Sir Edmund Hilary