A group of eccentric international cricketers today set a new record for the highest-ever match with a lung busting effort at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro.
The teams, including England's Ashes bowling legend Ashley Giles and South African icon Makhaya Ntini, the country's first black Test player, trekked to the roof of Africa before dawn and played 10 overs each of a Twenty20 game before cloud stopped play.
The game was played at 5,730 metres (18,910 feet), in the dusty and icy crater just below the dormant volcano's 5,895-metre summit, an AFP correspondent said.
The standing record for the world's highest game had been 5,165 metres, played in the Himalayas at Everest base camp in Nepal in 2009.
"It was such hard work breathing and running at this altitude but something like this only happens once in a lifetime," said cricket fan and participant Steven Smith, 22, who was bowled out for a duck.
The summit of Kilimanjaro has half the level of oxygen than land at sea level, doubling the energy needed for the match. Participants also ran the risk of acute mountain sickness and even potentially deadly pulmonary or cerebral oedema -- the flooding of the lungs or brain.
"It was great fun, worth coming all this way even if I didn't stay long in the crease," Smith said. Giles said the experience was "absolutely incredible".
A plastic track, stumps, bats, pads and plenty of spare balls were all hauled up by Tanzanian porters during a seven-day trek, and qualified umpires were on hand to ensure the game was played properly and eligible for the record.
