Auction may tip cricket appeal over $15m
Cricket Australia hopes an online auction of memorabilia from the historic tsunami benefit match will tip proceeds from the one-dayer over $15 million.
Monday's match at the MCG, between an Asian team and a Rest-of-the-World XI, featured many of cricket's finest players and raised $14.6 million.
It had been hastily arranged by Cricket Australia in the wake of the Boxing Day Indian Ocean tsunami, with proceeds to go to World Vision for disaster relief.
The uniforms worn by the players and the coin used for the toss by Prime Minister John Howard were sold in an auction that ended on Tuesday night on ebay.
The auction of the two match balls from the game will close on Friday afternoon.
The shirt worn by World XI skipper - Australian captain Ricky Ponting - attracted a winning bid of $60,405, while the shirt worn by Australian spinner Shane Warne, who took two wickets, had a final bid of $140,700.
The two match balls had attracted bids of $4,450 and $6,101 a short time ago.
Cricket Australia spokesman Peter Young said the proceeds from the auction still had to be verified by ebay and collected by Cricket Australia, but he hoped the auction would yield another tidy sum for disaster relief.
"The indications are we will receive a healthy six-figure sum and we hope the total figure we will provide to World Vision could tip over $15 million," Mr Young said.
Both teams were selected by the International Cricket Council, which also granted the match official one-day international status, meaning statistics from the game would count on the players' career records.
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