Sachin Tendulkar, who is not playing in the Coca-Cola Cup at Sharjah, will play in a 35-overs limited one-day match in Mumbai on April 18.

It will be after an almost two-month-long rest that Tendulkar will be part of the Indian World Cup ’99 squad which will play a benefit match against the Kapil Dev-led 1983 World Cup champion team at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

The match is being played as a extension of the ‘Good luck India’ campaign presented by India’s largest motorcycle manufacturer, Hero Honda. The organizers, inspired by the legendary Kapil Dev, have assured a sum of Rs 20 lakh each to the kith and kin of former Indian Test cricketers Ramnath Parkar and the late-Raman Lamba.

India’s former skipper and the world’s highest wicket taker in tests, Kapil Dev, is the originator of the timely idea for this match.

Parkar is still in a semi-comatose state after having met with an accident, while Lamba met an untimely and accidental death while playing for a Dhaka Club on contract.

“Sachin will play. He has already given his consent. He is most touchy, particularly about cricketers facing hardship,” said Professor Ratnakar Shetty, joint secretary of the Mumbai Cricket Association.

For Tendulkar, the match would be a good platform to practice after a long layoff due to injury.

The MCA will be selling tickets, which will not be expensive. The idea is to have more people in the stadium. Sony TV will telecast the match live.

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