Houston, Nov 11 (IANS) After a successful first game in New York, Cricket All Stars featuring Sachin Tendulkar (Sachin’s Blasters) and Shane Warne (Warne’s Warriors) will face-off in the second Twenty20 match of the three-match series at Houston’s baseball ground, Minute Maid Park, here on Thursday.
The first match had around 20,000 fans in the ground cheering for their cricketing stars right throughout the match and the second match being held on the Diwali night is expected to attract even more.
Warne’s Warriors are already 1-0 up in the three-match series and Tendulkar-led Sachin’s Blasters will aim to get back into the contest with a win on Thursday.
Despite Virender Sehwag’s (55) swashbuckling batting at the start, Ricky Ponting’s unbeaten 48 ensured that Warriors chased down the 141-run target with six wickets in hand.
With legends of the game Wasim Akram, Daneil Vettori, Courtney Walsh, Courtney Ambrose, Jonty Rhodes, Jacques Kallis, Shoaib Akhtar featuring in both the sides, the United States crowd will get to experience something once in a lifetime.
With both the ambassadors of the game, Tendulkar and Warne aiming to promote cricket in the US through the T20 series, the response from the crowd and fans who don’t get to witness the game live in stadiums has been spot on.
Glenn McGrath and Sourav Ganguly who didn’t get to play in the first match will be waiting to get their chance to be back on the field. It will be surely a tricky decision for Tendulkar to take regarding Ganguly after the skipper and Sehwag went off to a flier in the match.
On the other hand, Warne will be pleased with the performance of his boys and will likely to go in with the same squad to seal the series before the third and final match is played in Los Angeles.