Get Ready For The Ice Cricket Challenge!

History of Ice Cricket

Cricket on ice has been played since a couple of decades, having first being played in 1988. An annual ice cricket tournament is held in a village of Switzerland called St. Moritz, situated in the Swiss Alps. This will be the 29th edition of the Ice Trophy Tournament, which is the most famous event on the Swiss cricketing calendar.

With cricket always being stretched out into various formats, this will be the first time ever that international cricketing stars will be battling it out on ice. With temperatures expected to drop to -20 degrees, this tournament could put the ‘EXTREME’ into cricket. Are you ready for SEHWAG vs AFRIDI? Both teams will feature one Swiss national cricketer.

Watch the legends play on ice in the inaugural Ice Cricket Challenge beginning on 8 February! #IceCricketChallenge pic.twitter.com/Qun9c2OEBW
— Follow Your Sport (@followyoursport) February 6, 2018

How can it be played?

Yes, you must be wondering how cricket can be played on ice. The St. Moritz lake freezes into a thick layer of ice which is also covered with a soft layer of snow, which enables the ice to handle over 200 tonnes of weight. So don’t worry about just the players, but we could even have a stadium built on this lake! The pitch will have a turf carpet laid on the snowfield.

Virender Sehwag will captain one team of Ice Cricket Challenge 2018, while Shahid Afridi will captain the other. The challenge will take place on 8th and 9th February 2018, and the two teams called Team Royals and Badrutt’s Palace Diamonds will play two T20 matches against each other over these days.

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Teams:

Team Royals: Jacques Kallis (South Africa), Graeme Smith (South Africa), Daniel Vettori (New Zealand), Grant Elliott (New Zealand), Nathan McCullum (New Zealand), Owais Shah (England), Monty Panesar (England), Shahid Afridi (Pakistan), Shoaib Akthar (Pakistan), Abdul Razzaq (Pakistan), Matt Prior (England), Aidan Andrews (Switzerland).

Badrutt’s Palace Diamonds: Virender Sehwag (India), Ajit Agarkar (India), Michael Hussey (Australia), Mohammad Kaif (India), Zaheer Khan (India), Andrew Symonds (Australia), Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka), Rohan Jain (Switzerland), Mahela Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka), Ramesh Powar (India), Mithun Manhas (India).

We are now at the field , see how clean this looks this will be interesting #StMoritz #Switzerland #cricketonice #Shoaibakhtar pic.twitter.com/EYCSgH4ZnT
— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) February 7, 2018

Super excited for the #IceCricketChallenge on Feb 8th and 9th in Switzerland. pic.twitter.com/6p47cqQzzw
— Graeme Smith (@GraemeSmith49) February 6, 2018

Where to watch?

St. Moritz Cricket on Ice 2018 will telecast LIVE in India on Sony ESPN and Sony ESPN HD. The contest will begin LIVE at 15:30 IST on 8th February 2018. You can also get a live stream of the matches on Sony LIV. If you miss the action, keep watching our Cricket Scoops section for updates!