Growing up as a cricket-obsessed kid in Colombo, my childhood hero was Allan Border. When he toured Sri Lanka in the early 1980s, I recall feeling so privileged to have been sitting nearby as he walked down the steps at the P Sara Stadium, barely touching distance away. Dream come true. Could it get any better?Many years later, in Sri Lanka and India on a cricket tour that doubled up as a trade mission for the Queensland Government, I captained a team that included AB. The team also included James Hopes. We played against a young Upul Tharanga, Robin Uthappa and Shikhar Dhawan. By then, despite having played alongside AB in club cricket for many years, it was still surreal to cheekily banish my childhood idol to third man while I assumed captaincy privileges at first slip!In the Australian film The Castle, the larrikin lead character kept saying Thats going straight to the pool room when referring to something special. The team photo from that tour of India and Sri Lanka sits proudly in my pool room to this day, a reminder of the time when a complete nuffie like myself strode alongside his boyhood hero. My sons gaze upon that picture in awe, and I pretend to be nonchalant as I point to the photo that sits alongside.It captures me at the top of my bowling action, bowling to a batsman whose unmistakable stance, posterior sticking out at a jaunty angle, can only be one person - Sir Vivian Richards.Oxford University v Glamorgan at The Parks. The faster I bowled, the further it went. The wicketkeeper even stood up to the stumps to stop Viv from walking at me, but it mattered not. They kept disappearing.Imagine my excitement then when I overheard Richards confiding to his batting partner, Matthew Maynard (who, by the way, savaged me even more brutally than Sir Viv did) that perhaps one of the other batsmen needed some match practice - it being an early-season outing for Glamorgan - and that perhaps he should walk past one.I distinctly recall him saying, This Jeh boy - he trying hard, man. He deserve a wicket. My heart leapt. Imagine telling this story to my (yet unborn) sons. The day their old man cleaned up Viv Richards with that unplayable ball (no mention, of course, of the mid-pitch conversation about throwing it away).And then Maynard, that damn impertinent Welshman, the man who might as well have killed Bambi, told Richards that the next batsman actually had a headache and didnt really fancy batting today. Just like that, with Okay man, I just keep batting then, possibly the biggest moment of my unremarkable career disappeared before me.Barely an hour later, weeping over a solitary beer at the Kings Arms pub in Oxford (as a student, a solitary beer was about all I could afford), I heard a deep voice behind me. What you drinking, Jeh man? Let me buy the beers tonight. No one should have figures of 0 for 150 on their birthday, man. April 21, 1993. My most memorable birthday: Viv Richards buying me beers all night. Id rather he missed the straight one, though. I can drink beer any day!At the other end of the spectrum, checking into a hotel for an MCC match with one of my best mates, Dirk Viljoen of Zimbabwe, I got my own back on these damn Test cricketers. Who do they think they are anyway, playing international cricket while duffers like me tried just as hard and got nowhere?So, having checked in, we raced each other up the stairs to try and secure the double bed. Id started in pole position, so Viljoen was never in the hunt. As I plonked my bag on the double bed, I pointed somewhat ungraciously to the tiny single alongside.Viljoen, cheeky, impertinent little sod that he was (and still is), never respectful of his elders, tried to pull rank. A shameless act really from a young pup. Senior player always gets the double bed, mate, he proclaimed. How many Tests have you played?At that point he had played one solitary Test, so he outranked me. Even with one Test, that was always going to be 100% more than I could ever dream of. But little did he know that I was not one to surrender my creature comforts that easily.Okay Dirk, youve got me there. I will give the double bed to anyone in this room who has scored more Test runs than me. Oh sorry, I forgot… you got a pair, didnt you?I slept like a baby that night in my big double bed. Discount Vapormax . Wilson hit Schenn from behind during Tuesday nights game in Philadelphia, earning a five-minute major for charging and a game misconduct. He has a phone hearing with the department of player safety, which limits any potential suspension to five or fewer games. Off White Vapormax Fake . There are surprises among the Vezina candidates, but most of the others are standard top-tier performers, even if the two Hart Trophy runners-ups have never been quite as good as they have been through the first half of the season. http://www.cheapvapormaxtrainers.com/cheap-vapormax-off-white.html . Brett Kulak and Jackson Houck of the Vancouver Giants were each charged with assault causing bodily harm on Aug. 18, according to the B.C. court services. White Vapormax Cheap . PAUL, Minn. Fake Off White Vapormax For Sale .C. at the helm of the top team in the Eastern Conference. His tenure as the GM in Vancouver was all too brief. Though he led the Canucks to what was then a franchise record-shattering campaign in just his second season, Nonis was gone and replaced one year later. Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliotts jump into a big Salvation Army red kettle after scoring a touchdown in Sunday nights game versus the Tampa Bay Buccaneers seems to be paying dividends for the charity.In the roughly 12 1/2 hours after Elliotts jump, until 10:30 a.m. ET on Monday morning, the Salvation Army took in $182,000 in online donations, said Lt. Col. Ron Busroe.Busroe said that was a 61 percent increase over a similar time period from Sunday night into Monday last week.The publicity surrounding the jump into the oversized kettle was worth at least $4 million in equivalent advertising exposure, said Eric Smallwood, president of sponsorship evaluation firm Apex Marketing Group.Lets give Zeke credit for that. It is certainly fun, Cowboys owner, president and general manager Jerry Jones said Monday. We have those kettles there because we do want the visibility of reminding everybody, certainly at this time of year, how doing the most good is putting a dollar in that red kettle. To have gotten that attention in front of probably 20 million or so people [Sunday] night for the Salvation Army was just wonderful.The online donations were a welcome surprise for the Salvation Army; Busroe said through last week that red kettle donations were down 16 percent compared with last year, when donations totaled a recorrd $150 million.dddddddddddd Approximately 6 percent of donations to the Salvation Armys red kettle holiday campaign come online.Frigid temperatures in some cities are expected to have an impact on donations in the final days of the year.We needed this boost, Busroe said.Its certainly the most weve been talked about in the five years Ive been here, Busroe said. We were trending on Twitter last night.Elliott was flagged for excessive celebration, which usually carries a fine of $12,154, but NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy tweeted Monday morning that Elliott would not be fined. Elliott, who had planned to match a fine with a donation, tweeted he would still donate.Odell Beckham Jr. also chimed in on Twitter and didnt seem too pleased that the NFL let Elliott get by without a fine.?Busroe confirmed what Elliott had said postgame: Despite a two-decade close connection between the Cowboys and the charity, the Salvation Army and Elliott had not planned the stunt, nor did they have any official relationship. Elliott was part of a group of Cowboys rookies who attended a function at a Salvation Army in Fort Worth last month.The Cowboys defeated the Buccaneers 26-20 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. ' ' '