COVID-19: England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler to auction his World Cup winning shirt to raise funds to fight coronavirus

In a 01:01-minute long video message, Buttler is seen running-out Martin Guptill on the last ball of the super-over, denying New Zealand to have their maiden World Cup title.

New Delhi: England World Cup winning wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler announced on Wednesday (April 1, 2020) to auction the shirt he wore during the 2019 Cricket World Cup finals against New Zealand to raise funds for two London-based hospitals to combat coronavirus COVID-19. 

England clinched their maiden World Cup by defeating the Kiwis in the finals by 'the barest of margins' as the 50 overs game and the super over ended in a tie but the English team won the trophy on the basis of boundary-countback rule.

Buttler took to Twitter to announce the news and said, "I’m going to be auctioning my World Cup Final shirt to raise funds for the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals charity. Last week they launched an emergency appeal to provide life saving equipment to help those affected during the Covid-19 outbreak."

He also asked various Cricket stars like Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Michael Vaughan, AB de Villiers, to share the message. 

In a 01:01-minute long video, Buttler is seen running-out Martin Guptill on the last ball of the super-over, denying New Zealand to have their maiden World Cup title.

In the video message, Buttler says, "Hello everyone, I hope you are all safe and well and staying at home. As we all know, hospitals, doctors, nurses and the NHS are all doing quite an incredible job at the moment and in the weeks and months to come they are going to need our support even more so".

He added, "Last week, the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital's charity launched an emergency appeal to provide lifesaving equipments for those two hospitals, specialising in lung and heart conditions in preparation for the COVID-19 outbreak. To help with their fundraising effort, I`m going to be donating this shirt, which is the shirt I wore in the World Cup final last year signed by all the players who were members of that squad."

I’m going to be auctioning my World Cup Final shirt to raise funds for the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals charity. Last week they launched an emergency appeal to provide life saving equipment to help those affected during the Covid-19 outbreak. Link to auction in my bio. pic.twitter.com/ODN9JY4pk1 — Jos Buttler (@josbuttler) March 31, 2020

Earlier on March 27, the British PM Boris Johnson was also tested positive who on March 22 had said that the coronavirus is accelerating and Britain is 2-3 weeks behind Italy.

As of 2:30 PM IST on April 1, the United Kingdom (UK) has over 25,400 confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 1,700 people have died due to the deadly virus.

The coronavirus that was first reported in Wuhan (China) in December, 2019 has infected over 8,62,200 people across the world and around 42,400 people have lost their lives.