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Friday, July 14, 2017

famed Kiwi WK Batsman to climb K2 after summitting Everest

Able to identify this person ~ he toured India and was part of the Team in Test no. 1309 at Chepauk, though did not bat !

K2  better known as Mount Godwin-Austen is the second highest mountain in the world, after Mount Everest, at 8,611 metres (28,251 ft) above sea level. It is located on the China-Pakistan border between Baltistan, in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan, and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China. K2 is the highest point of the Karakoram range and the highest point in both Pakistan and Xinjiang.  K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the extreme difficulty of ascent. It has the second-highest fatality rate among the eight thousanders. With around 300 successful summits and 77 fatalities, about one person dies on the mountain for every four who summit !  It is more difficult and hazardous to reach the peak of K2 from the Chinese side, so it is usually climbed from the Pakistani side. K2 has never been climbed during winter.  The name K2 is derived from the notation used by the Great Trigonometric Survey of British India. Thomas Montgomerie made the first survey of the Karakoram from Mount Haramukh, some 210 km (130 miles) to the south, and sketched the two most prominent peaks, labeling them K1 and K2.

New Zealanders have a special liking for climbing mountains.  The climber who died on Mt Taranaki this week has been named by police as Morgan Ross Fraser, from Palmerston North. The 22-year-old failed to return from a climbing trip on Tuesday and a search and rescue operation was launched the following day. His body was found on the mountain just after midnight that night. Mr Fraser's family said they were heartbroken but took comfort from knowing he was doing something he loved when he died.

This is a story of a talented cricketer who played in 78 Tests hit 2865 runs had more than 200 victims.  In One dayers, he played in 179 aggregating 3314 with close to 150 victims. He is a Maori as well.  The Maoris are the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.  Aotearoa is the widely known Maori name for the Kiwiland and the word is understood to mean the land of the long white cloud.   Maoris have unique culture, own language, a rich mythology and performing arts. 

If you have guessed it – it is the story of Adam Craig Parore, a stylish wicket keeper who played for the New Zealand for more than a decade.  This man born in 1971 donned various hats.  After announcing his retirement, he was a Mortgage broker, played in ICL for Chennai Superstars.  He holds the record for the highest One Day International innings score without a boundary (96 vs India, in Baroda, 1994].

Edmund Hillary was a kiwi as well.  Parore summitted  Mount Everest in 2011. He was guided by a  Queenstown mountain guide  Mark Woodward who has stood atop Mt Everest eight times. On 20th  May 2011, Adam Parore, Woodward and their group of 8 clients, 3 guides and 10 sherpas stood atop the 8848 m mountain.  The 40 year old Parore has been preparing for more than a year and has been in Nepal since March to acclamatise and prepare for fulfillment of his lifelong dream.

Now he is in news, taking on one of the toughest climbs in the world. The 46-year-old former Black Cap has started a mission to scale Mount Godwin-Austen, better known as K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. Parore, who successfully reached the top of Mt Everest six years ago, arrived in Skardu, in Pakistan, on June 16. He told the  NZ Herald on Sunday the mission was the result of 18 months' training and preparation. "The attraction is really the physicality of it. That really is the thing that captured me when I first started mountaineering five or six years ago - just how physically demanding it is.

"The other key thing that I probably missed more than I realised, when I was retired from professional sport, was just being a part of the team. "I really enjoy that side of things as well." Parore has been documenting his latest mission in a series of posts on his blog and via social media. He has a small team with him, including several Nepalese sherpas.

Earlier this year, he shared how much he had always wanted to take on the challenge of climbing the second-highest peak in the world. "Even before I began climbing, it was always K2 - the ultimate challenge. And for me, anything worth doing is worth doing as well as you can,'' he wrote on his blog. "As with everything I do, it begins as an impossible dream - not quite a fantasy, but certainly worthy of sniggers from those around you, if ever your aspiration was disclosed.'' The team is expected to be back in early August.

Now getting back to that Test 1309 – it was fallacious to play a Test at Chepauk in October.  Kiwis had been through a shakeup – a newly appointed coach (Glenn Turner)  wanted someone with proven leadership skills, who had the respect of the players, and who could maintain discipline both on and off the field by his own example. He had no hesitation in going for Lee Germon, a player with no previous Test experience,  who debuted at Bangalore captaining his side. He was a keeper who can bat in the lower-middle order, and a place was found for him in the team by converting Adam Parore into a specialist batsman.

In the Chepauk Test, played  two days after a total eclipse of the sun, which had brought the country to a halt, it was dull and mundane.  . At only 71.1 overs, it was the shortest Test in terms of actual playing time as India crawled to 144.   After the first day, when play began at 2.30 p.m., there was no further play until the fourth day.  Sachin Tendulkar made  an unbeaten fifty, before bad light and showers drove the players off the ground for the last time. Prabhakar battled throughout the 304 minutes of play to score 41, one of the slower innings in the history of the game.  Adam Parore did not get to bat !

With regards- S. Sampathkumar
1st July 2017.


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