Exeter School alumnus joins summit challenge
A group of cricketers, including a former Exeter School pupil, set a new record for the highest-ever match with a lung-busting effort at the top of Kilimanjaro on Friday 26 September.
The teams, including English bowling legend Ashley Giles and South African icon Makhaya Ntini, the country’s first black Test player, and Exeter School alumnus Shripal Shah (1985 -1991), trekked to the roof of Africa before dawn and played ten overs each.
The game was played at 5,730 metres (18,910 feet), in the flat crater just below Kilimanjaro’s 5,895-metre summit.
The current record for the world’s highest game is 5,165 metres, played in the Himalayas at Everest base camp in Nepal in 2009.
The final score was a winning 82 for 5 for the ‘Gorillas’ team, led by England women’s vice-captain Heather Knight, against 64 for 9 for the ‘Rhinos’ team led by Ashley Giles.
The match - played on a plastic mat for the wicket over the ash and in thin, freezing air surrounded by vast blocks of ice - is expected to qualify as a new world record, as under Twenty20 rules a minimum of 5 overs per team constitutes a match.
The summit of Kilimanjaro has half the level of oxygen than at sea level, doubling energy needed for the match.
Players are raising funds for charities including Cancer Research and conservation charity Tusk Trust, which works to stem rampant poaching of elephants and other animals.
Funds raised will also go towards building Rwanda’s first international cricket pitch. The game is growing rapidly in popularity in the central African nation there after being introduced by those who returned after fleeing genocide 20 years ago.
