All Stars Cricket (Cricket All-Stars Series) is an exhibition T20 cricket series (started in 2015). The first cricket series taking place in the USA. The features two lineups of renowned retired cricket players from around the world, led by cricket icons Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar of India and the King of Spin bowling Shane Warne of Australia. The Cricket All-Stars Series is a set of games played between Sachem’s Blasters (lead by Sachin Tendulkar) and Warne's Warriors (lead by Shane Warne). The Cricket All-Stars Trophy and team shirts were unveiled along with Tendulkar and Warne on their respective team's player rosters, on 5th November 2015 in Times Square, United States.
Teams and Players
| Sachin's Blasters | Warne's Warriors |
| Sachin Tendulkar (Ind) - (C) | Shane Warne (Aus) - (C) |
| Virender Sehwag (Ind) | Matthew Hayden (Aus) |
| VVS Laxman (Ind) | Michael Vaughan (Eng) |
| Brian Lara (WI) | Ricky Ponting (Aus) |
| Saurav Ganguly (Ind) | Jonty Rhodes (SA) |
| Mahela Jayawardene (SL) | Jacques Kallis (SA) |
| Carl Hooper (WI) | Andrew Symonds (Aus) |
| Moin Khan (Pak) | Kumar Sangakara (SL) |
| Muttiah Murlitharan (SL) | Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak) |
| Graeme Swann (Eng) | Daniel Vettori (NZL) |
| Curtly Ambrose (WI) | Courtney Walsh (WI) |
| Shaun Pollock (SA) | Wasim Akram (PAK) |
| Glenn McGrath (Aus) | Allan Donald (SA) |
| Lance Klusener (SA) | Ajit Agarkar (Ind) |
| Shoaib Akhtar (Pak) | |
| Colour : Blue | Colour : Red |
| Cricket All-Stars | |
| Countries | United States |
| Administrator | Sachin Tendulkar, Shane Warne |
| Format | Twenty20 |
| First tournament | 2015 |
| Next tournament | 2016 (Expected) |
| Tournament format | Best-of-3 series |
| Number of teams | 2 |
| Current champion | Warne's Warriors (1st title) |
| Most successful | Warne's Warriors |
| Most runs | Kumar Sangakkara(153) |
| Most wickets | Andrew Symonds (8) |
List of series
The inaugural series was held across three cities in the United States. The 2016and 2017 series will comprise 6 matches in different Locations, all of which are yet to be announced.
Trophy
The All-Stars Trophy and team shirts were unveiled by Tendulkar and Warne along with their respective team's player rosters, on 5 November 2015 in Times Square,United States.
Teams
The All-Stars Series is a set of games played between Sachin's Blasters lead by Sachin Tendulkar and Warne's Warriors lead by Shane Warne.
"Gods of Cricket played on America soil for the first time"
The much awaited "Cricket All Stars Series" played in USA in November 2015 across 3 cities. Between "Sachin's Blasters" and "Warne's Warriors". The series is the brainchild of the game's two legends.
Along with the duo, many other greats of the game including Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting has playee Twenty20 matches in America starting from November 7 in New York. "During last year's MCC bicentenary match at Lord's, I realised that all of us, I mean the former cricketers still have a lot of passion left. We realised that crowds still come and fill up the stadiums when we play. Then I felt that we could continue with our passion and also promote cricket in different parts of the world," Tendulkar told "PTI" news agency on Tuesday (October 6 2015). "I don't know whether it will open the market for India but the basic idea is to get the locals excited and get them involved with the game of cricket. This is an ideal opportunity to globalise the game. It gives us opportunity to take cricket in the United States," Tendulkar added. "The All Stars League is coming to America. Sachin Tendulkar and I have spent nearly 12 months putting this together. Be part of history with us and buy a ticket for one or all of the games, we have signed some of the best players who have played international cricket over the past 25 years," wrote Warne on his Twitter page.
One of the biggest and most successful cricket events in 2015 was undoubtedly the Cricket All-Stars series in USA, which featured retired cricket stars of the 90s and 2000s coming up against each other in a series of three T20 matches.
However, Brad Hodge, one of the first ever mercenary T20 cricketers, did respond to Warne’s tweet, saying he hoped that he was among the stars in action in 2016. Hodge, who has a phenomenal record playing in T20 leagues around the world, was one of the first travelling cricketers who responded to international snub by becoming a mercenary run-smasher.
Cricket All Stars: Big Apple takes a bite of cricket
Cricket revolution was born in the USA with Shane Warne’s Warriors beating Sachin’s Blasters in the opening game of the Cricket All-Stars.
So the cricket revolution was born in the USA on Saturday with Warne’s Warriors beating Sachin’s Blasters by a six-wicket margin in the opening game of the Cricket All-Stars at New Yorks’ Citi Field. Bharat Sundaresan looks at the some of the aspects and cricketing superstars that stood out and those that didn’t.
Anthem singer surprises Warne
Shane Warne might have hogged the highlight reel of the first innings by befuddling three of his greatest nemeses—Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara and VVS Laxman—with a vintage spell of mesmerizing genius. But it all paled in comparison to the bemused look on his face when he saw an Indian aunty dish out her rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner—the USA national anthem—before the match began.
Moin sounds like he had fun
While everyone was looking forward to see Tendulkar play the straight-drive and Brian Lara unleash a rasping pull-shot with that extravagant back-lift—both of which never happened—it was equally nostalgia-inducing to hear Moin Khan scream, “Yoursellfffff…” from behind the stumps every time a Warriors batsman stroked a ball back towards the spinners.
SA fast men have a go
The IPL has seen a number of long-standing teammates try to outwit each other from opposition camps. But it was quite a sight to see two stars from different generations of South African cricket in battle. Though Shaun Pollock took initial honours by smashing Allan Donald over the mid-wicket fence, it was White Lightning who struck the “I got your number” pose a ball later, after he had Pollock caught in the deep with a wily off-cutter.
Lankan greats side by side
Oh and what can you say about Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara. The two might have finally stopped appearing one after the other on the Sri Lankan score-board. So they made up for it by appearing alongside each other. KC Sangakkara c Jayawardene b Akhtar!
Placards from the 90s
High-profile cricket might finally have landed in America, but the messages on the placards in the stands still seemed to be stuck in the 1990s. There was a plethora of those reading “Sachin for President”. But it seemed pretty obvious that the majority of the thousands who turned up at Citi Field had turned up for one sole reason—a sighting of Tendulkar in cricket gear. And no placard summed it up better than, “God Blessed America”.
Calypso kings humbled
The only real disconcerting aspect of the match was to see two of the world’s greatest fast bowlers, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, who are well into their 50s, being taken apart when they ambled in and rolled their arms over. Especially, since we in India were only used to seeing the duo terrorize batsmen, at that time of the night—well past the midnight hour as we cozied up in front of the television.
Still got the moves
It did seem a tad unfair too, considering the two batsmen smashing them over the ropes were Virender Sehwag and Sangakkara, both of whom are still playing competitive cricket. But it wasn’t surprising to see those who are part of the coaching staff with various T20 outfits around the world look in prime form, be it Jacques Kallis taking breath-taking catches, Wasim Akram bowling like he never left and Daniel Vettori being as crafty and stingy as ever.
Words exchanged
If you didn’t believe that competitive egos never die, you simply had to see the exchange between Shoaib Akhtar and Matthew Hayden as both bullies went after each other in a brief war of the worlds. But it was the Pakistani who got his own before showing off that he could still bounce out the best in the world with his pace, like he did with Sangakkara.
A batsman’s nightmare
It was also fun to hear the former stars being miked up in the middle. You couldn’t help but sense the actual distress in Tendulkar’s voice when he said, “Look at this. I have Jonty Rhodes at backward point and Ricky Ponting at point to deal with”.
Different strokes
For years, cricket and baseball have had to endure painful comparisons while trying to retain their identities on either side of the Atlantic. And the brown dirt infield did look odd and out of place in a cricketing sense, especially when you could spot it behind the wicket-keeper. But you couldn’t deny the fact that there was a similarity in the way they white ball kept flying into the crowd—even if it didn’t matter on which side of the foul-line it ended up on Saturday.
Both the legends — Warne and Tendulkar — conceived of this idea of taking a travelling road show of past greats, the first stop in the United States, after appearing at the MCC match earlier this summer. Tendulkar asserted that he has decided to pick the bat up again to globalise the game, and Warne proclaimed that they were bringing cricket to America. After a crash course in history of international cricket in the US which pre-dates the Ashes by more than 30 years, the claims of getting America hooked on to cricket were tempered and more reasonable expectations were stated.
It was plainly obvious that this was a business exercise, premised on the fact that Sachin-Mania will draw thousands upon thousands through the turnstiles. In all, more than 60,000 fans watched the matches in the three venues, although Warne as he is wont to do, exaggerated the attendance figures a bit.
Some of the players from the United States national team served as net bowlers as well as substitute fielders, and the opportunity to rub shoulders with the who's who of cricket even if perfunctorily, could only help them in their cricketing ambitions. There was also a sliver of Americans who had never seen a game of cricket on TV or in the flesh made their way to the baseball stadiums as a matter of curiosity. How that piqued curiosity gets turned into following the game itself is anybody's guess.
Tendulkar and Warne hedged their bets on the fact that the glittering assembly of cricketing greats, even as some of them are just a shadow of their very selves in their pomps, will tease the fans out of their homes and in to the arenas, and open their wallets with the most potent pill: Nostalgia. Who in their right mind would resist themselves and their own wise counsel when they hear Wasim and Shoaib, Warne and McGrath, Sachin and Sehwag, Ambrose and Walsh?
I reluctantly went to cover the first game of the series in New York and the moment I was back in my living room after the match, bought my flight tickets to go to LA for the final game. The buzz around CitiField was quite intoxicating as nearly 25,000 fans almost recreated the atmosphere of the games I was witness to at the recently concluded ICC World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
For his 56 runs, Tendulkar faced Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald and Warne himself, in addition to Jacques Kallis and Daniel Vettori. My mind went back to West Indies tour of India in 1994 when Walsh had the measure of Tendulkar for the most part. When I saw Donald marking his run up and Tendulkar scratching out his guard, for a brief moment 1996 Durban played in my head. Of course, memories of Australia's tour to India in 1998, and the subsequent desert storm innings are never far away from my thoughts, and as Warne ambled in, those memories were on hyperdrive.
I was suckered in by the hold cricket had on me when I was a teenager, and just a promise of the old battles rekindled even in super-slow motion, convinced me to fly 3000 miles across the country. Of course, Walsh now is slower than Venkatesh Prasad's slower balls, and Donald serves up pies, and there isn't that ripping legbreaks coming out of that broad right hand of Warne. The cricketing merit itself of these exhibition games, Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara's performances notwithstanding, was miniscule. There were odd times when the matches looked to be competitive — Shoaib Akhtar in couple of his overs and Saqlain Mushtaq putting on a brief display — but in general, the cricket was insipid.
There were a few curious onlookers — joggers and people walking their dogs — who stopped by the game and tried to make sense of what was happening. Perhaps, matches like these do a lot more to spread cricket in America than globetrotting all stars. After the match, Timil was spotted wearing the jersey of Sachin's Blasters and having his picture taken on the Dodger Stadium outfield.
