MELBOURNE, Australia, Weds. Jan. 5, 2005: Cricket fans have already snapped up approximately 20,000 seats ahead of the January 10th World Cricket Tsunami Appeal fund-raising match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia. Tickets for the match went on sale at midday yesterday and in half-a-day, 20,000 tickets were bought, much to the delight of International Cricket Council Chief Executive, Malcolm Speed. Cricket Australia, Cricket Victoria, and the Melbourne Cricket Club, who are organizing the match on behalf of the ICC, the Asian Cricket Council and the Federation of International Cricketers' Association, are hoping to fill the 80,000 capacity MCG. The 50-over day-night match features some of the biggest names in cricket, with an ICC World XI taking on an ACC XI. India's Sourav Ganguly has been named captain of the Asian XI and his team-mate Sachin Tendulkar has also been included in a 14-member squad despite being advised to rest his left elbow. They take on a Ricky Ponting-led World XI, which includes Shane Warne, and the West Indies trio of Brian Lara, Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo. The second match between the two sides will be played in February in either India or Sri Lanka, the two Test nations to have endured the worst from the tsunami just over a week ago. The teams for Monday’s match-up are as follows: ASIAN XI (from): Sourav Ganguly (IND/captain), Sanath Jayasuriya (SRI), Virender Sehwag (IND), Marvan Atapattu (SRI), Rahul Dravid (IND), Yousuf Youhana (PAK), Alok Kapali (BAN), Kumar Sangakkara (SRI), Chaminda Vaas (SRI), Shoaib Akhtar (PAK), Zaheer Khan (IND), Anil Kumble (IND), Muttiah Muralitharan (SRI), Sachin Tendulkar (IND). REST OF THE WORLD (from): Ricky Ponting (AUS/captain), Matthew Hayden (AUS), Adam Gilchrist (AUS), Stephen Fleming (NZL), Brian Lara (WIN), Chris Gayle (WIN), Chris Cairns (NZL), Shane Warne (AUS), Glenn McGrath (AUS), Dwayne Bravo (WIN), Darren Gough (ENG), Daniel Vettori (NZL). Reprinted from Hardbeatnews.com