Ducking Beamers points us to the world record created by two cricket teams who played a Twenty20 game on Mount Everest. They have now officially participated in the “highest game of cricket ever played” at the “highest altitude ever recorded for a field sport.” The match was played at a height of 5165 metres after a nine-day trek through the Himalayas. The atmosphere at this level only has 66% of the oxygen found at sea level.

The place where the teams played the match is called “Gorak Shep“. It is not rock. It is a frozen lakebed that is covered with sand. As their website says:

Gorak Shep, one of the world’s most inhospitable environments, is the highest plateau on earth where an official game of cricket can be played. It is over twice the altitude that FIFA allow professional footballers to play due to health risks (up to 2,500 metres).

The two teams were named “Team Hillary” and “Team Tenzing” after the first men who scaled Mount Everest, Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay. Each team had 15 team members in the eventuality of some persons falling sick. Team Hillary (the team in blue) won the match. It looks like they scored 152 in the first innings and bowled out Team Tenzing for 116 in 18 overs.

In addition to their website, most of the team members have blogs. Here is a snippet from the last post:

Today was a rest day, but as is the nature of this trip, the word ‘rest’ is pretty misleading! We had an acclimatization walk up to 4850 metres, which took us higher than any mountain in Europe and higher than ever before for most of us on the trip.  All but one of the group took part, and we’re confident he will be fit to join us tomorrow as we move towards Loboche.