How was your Dad's charity dinner?
During the 1996 test series with India at Trent Bridge we went with our Dad to his friends house, who was there....Ganguly, Dravid, Kumble, Azharuddin and Mongia. Was such a surreal experience walking into this guys house and these lot sat around! Still gives me goosebumps to this day!
you saw all those guys? Wow, that's actually amazing!! Unbelievable in fact!
He wasn't able to get close to the players, because there were loads of security around every single player. Except Monty Panesar
He didn't recognise all the Indian players, but he said that he saw Yuvraj, Raina, Dravid, Harbhajan, Ishant, Dhoni, Panesar, Alec Stewart, and Brian Lara! + he said that there were players that he didn't recognise. I imagine the likes of Mukund, Mishra, Saha would also have been there.
Ravi Shastri was the MP
He was disappointed that Sachin wasn't there, but he was so excited that he saw Lara.
The prizes in the auction were unbelievable. Dhoni's bat that he used in the world cup final went for £100,000. The gloves that he used went for £20,000. Another auction prize was dinner with Dhoni and his wife. Someone bought this for £10,000! There were a load of other awesome prizes, but they went for top dollar
There was a signed picture depicting Tendulkar's career. My dad bid on this but it went for something like £50k and apparently he can't afford that [
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He did manage to buy a signed piction of Sir Ian Botham (I think). That didn't go for a lot.
Lara told everyone that he's going to be at Lord's for the entire Test because he wants to see Tendulkar's 100th 100.
Also, they got given complimentary mini autograph bats labeled with Dhoni's charity's logo, so I'll take those along to matches hoping to get them signed.