WITH so many big names doing battle on Sunday to raise funds for the Bushfires Appeal at the SCG, it will take a couple of gimlet-eyed, take-no-nonsense officials to umpire the celebrity Twenty20 bunfight.
Step forward, then, two masters of keeping an unruly cast list in order - Michael Parkinson and Andrew Denton.
The two died-in-the-whites cricket fans will stand at either end to umpire a star-studded line-up headed by former Australian captains Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh.
But rising hopes that Shane Warne would make his Australian comeback were dashed yesterday after the spin supremo realised that he had overseas commitments, planned months ago, which required him to leave Sydney on Sunday.
Warne was keen to play and had gone as far as to ask for 13-year-old Aiden Buchanan to be involved as an honorary 12th man for the Blues squad.
Aiden met Warne last week and broke down in tears as he described losing his brother, sister and uncle in the fires that destroyed the town of Kinglake.
The match, dubbed Australia's Big Bash, aims to raise $500,000 for the appeal, and it will have the feel of a flashback through nearly two decades of Australian cricketing dominance with Glenn McGrath and Michael Slater signing up - not to mention David Warner, Nathan Bracken and Moises Henriques, plus female stars Lisa Sthalekar and Ellyse Perry.
The names of the other celebrities to commit range from Braith Anasta and Anthony Minichiello to Phil Waugh and Lote Tuqiri, Barry Hall to Shannon Noll and even singer-turned-politician Peter Garrett.
Presumably with Parky and Denton - both masters of the confessional genre, once appearing on the same show - on hand, backchat will be kept in check. More walking than talking, in fact.
The game will last three hours from 5pm, and tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for children aged 6-12 and $50 for a family ticket - available from either
www.ticketek.com.au or by phoning 132849.
Better get in early as there's little doubt this will be a sell-out.
