Mini T20 at North Pole

CHENNAI: Indians have taken cricket to new heights. No, it's not astronomical payouts of the IPL but a bunch of Navy officers on an expedition to the North Pole playing a five-over-a-side match ��� call it mini T20��� with a British team. In true nailbiting style, the Indians beat the Brits by a single run.
The match was held on the morning of April 10, as a minus 40 degree Celsius summer wind blew across the Arctic surface.But players didn't put willow to leather. "We rolled our old woollen socks into a ball by strapping it with tape. Three ski poles doubled up as wickets and a shovel became our bat. We then played a five-over match with the British and beat them by one run," said Raj Kumar, an engineer-sailor in the 10-member Navy squad.
He was speaking exclusively to The Times of India from Longyearbyen, the closest habitation from the North Pole, situated at 78 degrees north. The cricketing victory, however, isn't the biggest feat for the Navy expedition. "The entire trip, every moment of it, right from living on pasta and muesli to reaching the North Pole and unfurling the Indian tricolour will be ingrained in our minds," said Surgeon Lt Commander Ajay Sharma.
After taking the Delhi-Frankfurt-Oslo-Longyearbyen route, the team was transported to Barneo base camp, located at 89 degree north, by a flight operation aircraft to pick up stores, rifles and cartridges.
"The next one degree to reach the pole which spans a distance of 120 km was completed over a period of 10 days with eight hours of active skiing packed into each day," said 37-year-old Rajkumar, a BITS-trained mechanical engineer.