Rick Liston bowls one down in one of the many exotic locations on the Local to Lords epic journey.
By Kath Gannaway
MIXING with the locals was always the plan when Healesville cricket ambassadors Rick Liston and Josh Ogilvie set off on their 80-day Johnnie Walker Local to Lords adventure.
The pair set off on their epic journey on 22 April, flying to Singapore then batting their way through Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam before the Mail caught up with them on a skype call from provincial China.
Josh said their visit coincided with with the district’s annual dragon boat festival – a stroke of luck he attributed to Rick’s fortune cookie addiction.
Having brought their own paddle (or cricket bat) along, it was only natural they would end up contenders in the race.
“We took the cricket kit along, hoping to find a game, but when the bat was produced it was (not for the first time) mistaken for a boat paddle,” the boys explained.
Monsoonal rains put a damper on some of their early games but Rick said they were managing to meet their objective – introducing cricket to as many people in as many out of the way locations as possible … and having a good time doing it.
Their first game on Thai soil (or sand) was in An Thong National Park in the Gulf of Thailand where DiCaprio’s blockbuster ‘The Beach’ was set. The enormity of China has been a revelation.
“Rural China makes up such a massive part of this country,” Josh said. “We only see images of Beijing and all the development that’s going on but it’s been really interesting to take that stereotyping and compare it to the reality. We’re going through villages which are still very traditional,” he said.
Rick said they were looking forward to the next part of the journey which would take them to the Great Wall of China, on to Hong Kong, Mongolia and then to Russia.
“We realised at one point that having flown eight hours from Melbourne to Singapore and travelled six weeks we are still closer to Melbourne than to Moscow,” he said.
More than 700 people are following their cricket tour on Facebook, with blogs and photos keeping friends, family and fans entertained.
The Aussie pair will fly from Russia to London where they will be special Johnnie Walker ambassadors at the 2009 Ashes Series at Lords in July.
To follow Rick and Josh as they plough through the final overs of their Local to Lords partnership, log on to the Johnnie Walker Australia page on Facebook.
