Dubai [UAE], April 8 : England cricketer Jos Buttler raised £65,000 by auctioning off his 'very special' World Cup final t-shirt to contribute towards the fight against coronavirus.
"It's a very special shirt but I think it takes on extra meng with it being able to hopefully go to the emergency cause. I probably took it [the shirt] off about 7 am the next morning. They were great times ... headed back to the hotel bar with everyone still in full kit. It's seen it all, that shirt," International Cricket Council (ICC) quoted Buttler as saying.
"I think £65,000 is an amazing amount of money and, having spoken to the guys at the hospitals, I know what that can buy them. That's an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine. That machine is vital not just for COVID-19 patients but all heart and lung patients," he added.
Earlier, Buttler had announced that he will auction his shirt to raise funds for two London-based hospitals to combat COVID-19.
Buttler had posted a video message on Twitter and captioned the post as: "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 lifesaving equipment to help those affected during the COVID-19 outbreak."
In the video, Buttler had said: "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 an incredible job at the moment and in the weeks and months to come they are going to need our support even more so."
"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 my World Cup final shirt, signed by all the players who were members of that squad," he had added.
( With inputs from ANI )
