Players from Australia’s men’s cricket team said on Thursday they have donated the prize money from the recent all-format tour of Sri Lanka to support children and families affected by the island nation’s economic crisis. The donation will be spearheaded by Test captain Pat Cummins, who is also a UNICEF ambassador to Australia, and cue ball captain Aaron Finch. In total, the team will donate 45,000 Australian dollars (INR 25,36,294 lakh in Indian value) to Sri Lanka.
The donation from Australia’s male cricketers will help support 1.7 million vulnerable children in Sri Lanka through UNICEF’s nutrition, healthcare, clean water, education and mental health services programmes.
Cummins was quoted by cricket.com.au, it became abundantly clear to us how much the daily lives of the people of Sri Lanka are affected. When the team saw that the conditions there were worse, we decided to send a quantity there with the help of UNICEF.
The tour of Sri Lanka in June–July 2021 was Australia’s first visit to the island nation since 2016. Australia won the T20I series 2–1 before Sri Lanka won the ODI series 3–2. The tour ended 1-1 with a two-match test series in Galle.
Since April this year, Sri Lanka has been in crisis due to daily power outages, rising fuel prices and severe shortages of basic goods such as food and medicine. During Australia’s second Test against Sri Lanka, there were protests around the Galle International Cricket Stadium and in the capital Colombo, as well as long queues of people waiting to refuel vehicles.
In 2021, Cummins and Cricket Australia donated A$50,000 to support India’s oxygen supply during the COVID-19 crisis, when a second wave of COVID-19 wreaked havoc in 2021 and led to the suspension of the Indian Premier League .