Highest Cricket Match Played On Mount Kilimanjaro – Featuring 3 Of The Best International Players

Sportsmen attempt to play the highest cricket match on Kilimanjaro

In September 2014, 30 cricket players and officials spent eight days trekking to the summit of Kilimanjaro in a bid to play the world’s highest cricket match.

The team consisted of a number of famous players including former England player and current limited overs coach, Ashley Giles, as well as former South African fast bowler, Makhaya Ntini.

Clare Connor, the former England women’s captain and Heather Knight, a current English women’s cricketer also took part in the world's highest cricket match, along with a number of players from Australia, South Africa, Kenya and Canada.

The group of 30 players and officials had a large support crew of porters and guides who helped carry cricket gear and a pitch mat up the mountain for what might very well be the highest cricket match ever played.

The highest cricket match is done 'Twenty20 Style' on Kilimanjaro

The group first summited before descending back down to the relatively flat landscape of Crater Camp which sits just below Uhuru Peak.

From here, the teams separated and a full Twenty20 cricket match was played, with official umpires.

Balls travel much further at altitude, so the team carried 24 additional cricket balls to make up lost shots during the highest cricket match.

Giles tweeted from the pitch: ‘This is absolutely incredible! We are playing cricket on the summit of Africa!’

The match has yet to be ratified by authorities, but once it has been, it will officially break the previous record of the world's highest cricket match, set near Everest Base Camp in 2009 by nearly 600 meters.

The game proved tough for many of the players as exertion at altitude is very demanding. But the time taken early on in the trek to acclimatise for the highest cricket match helped prevent any serious issues of altitude sickness that can occur on Kilimanjaro.

The group used the record-breaking event to raise money for cancer research, as well as for the African Wildlife Conservation charity, Tusk Trust. Some of the money will also be used to help build Rwanda’s first international cricket pitch.

Read More Kilimanjaro News:

• 85 year-old Robert Wheeler becomes oldest person to climb Kilimanjaro
• Shaun Gash, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, sets his sights on Kilimanjaro
• Norma Brewer's fake Kilimanjaro obituary tricks the media
• Inner-city teenagers receive a blessing climbing Mount Kilimanjaro
• Drone ascends summit of Kilimanjaro