Cricket Legends To Play At The Park Club

Rivalries to be put aside to help raise funds for Operation Smile

On Friday 1st July at The Park Club, cricketing legends past and present will be putting aside age-old rivalries at Operation Smile’s second annual Celebrity Charity Cricket Day.

Andrew Strauss, expected to star in the following day’s Natwest Series Final, will be looking for some tips on how to beat the Aussies from past England cricketers Nasser Hussain, Michael Atherton, Angus Fraser, Derek Pringle and John Emburey.

The ‘who’s who’ of cricket will be out in force, giving their time to compete in a 6-a-side ‘pro-am’ tournament and passing on their combined knowledge to 100 local schoolchildren in a morning coaching session - raising funds for Operation Smile, a charity that performs reconstructive surgery on children with facial deformities in the developing world.

Channel 4’s ‘The Analyst’ Simon Hughes will be there, as will a host of other huge names in international cricket from the Lashings World XI. The Squad includes Herschelle Gibbs, Richie Richardson, Joel Garner, Rashid Latif, Henry Olonga, Tino Best, Greg Blewett, Andre Nel, Jimmy Adams, Hamish Marshall, Chris Harris, Alvin Kallicharran and Henry Olonga – some of whom will be providing some evening entertainment!

The rest of the day’s activities include a BBQ, steel band and fairground attractions for the children. The event climaxes in the evening with a Bollywood themed dinner as all of this year’s proceeds will be going to support Operation Smile’s mission in India.

Nasser Hussain commented “We get many requests to give of our time and support charities, and there’s only so much you can do – but seeing what we were able to accomplish with last year’s event has really affected all of us who participated – and we are delighted to be repeating it – and will continue to do so for years to come I hope.”

Dr. Bill Magee, Co-Founder of the global organisation Operation Smile comments “We can’t thank the cricketers enough. Last year we raised £50,000, allowing for the treatment of over 450 children in India. With their continued support, this year’s event is going to be bigger and better – with close to 300 people expected. The thousands of children that we treat each year are helped not only by our volunteer medical professionals, who give so willingly of their time, but also by those committed individuals who use their platform to raise awareness for our work.”

Corporate sponsors for the event include Agilisys, npower, Coca Cola, Bank of Scotland, Vama, Far East Beer Company and Cobra Beer.

Throughout the world, Operation Smile volunteers repair childhood facial deformities while building private and public partnerships that advocate for sustainable healthcare systems. Operation Smile United Kingdom is part of a global alliance that currently serves children in 22 developing countries across Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. As a Resource Chapter, Operation Smile United Kingdom recruits medical volunteers to support Operation Smile’s global medical programmes, raises funds and awareness for children suffering from facial deformities and creates educational training opportunities for volunteer medical professionals from partner Operation Smile foundations.

Through its unique medical mission model, Operation Smile mobilises teams of expert volunteer medical professionals to perform reconstructive surgery on children with cleft lip and cleft palate deformities. Without appropriate medical care, these children suffer both physical and emotional trauma. Many have difficulty breathing, speaking and eating. The social stigmas that they face are isolation, even abandonment. Given these overwhelming circumstances, these children cannot become productive members of society. The greatest injustice of all is that a relatively simple surgery can correct a cleft lip and cleft palate deformity. For over 20 years, Operation Smile has committed itself to change the lives of these forgotten children.

June 27, 2005