Black Caps spinner Ajaz Patel is raising money for Starship Children’s Hospital by donating one of the shirts he wore during last year’s Mumbai Test where he became just third the Test bowler to take 10 wickets in an innings.
The cause is one that is close to Patel’s heart after he spent a couple of days in the hospital last year when his daughter, Hania, was born.
“My daughter was born at Starship and she had a bit of a fever and they took her in for check-ups and to make sure she was okay,” he explained.
“They gave her a short dose of antibiotics but during that period…she was in the NICU unit, she wasn’t really in too much trouble but I remember I was sitting there with her and I remember looking around the room and there were so many vulnerable babies.
“The care and love they were receiving from the nurses - I remember thinking as a parent for the first time, how amazing that is but how difficult it would have been for those parents.”
Money raised by the auctioned shirt will help pay for the play specialist in the hospital’s radiology department, which helps children cope with procedures like MRI scans without the need for a general anaesthetic.
“That’s something quite unique. In an adult hospital you’re not going to have a play specialist to teach adults how to play, in a children’s hospital that can be pretty vital in terms of getting them calm down and making it easy for them to go through those scans,” Patel said.
“Being a cricketer and sport and play being everything, I think they saw that as a good fit and it’s filling a need for them as well.”
Patel said the decision was inspired by Tim Southee, who donated his shirt from the Test Championship to raise money for Hollie Beattie, an eight-year-old who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer.
“The first time I really thought about it was when Tim after the World Test Championship donated his shirt for the Hope for Holly campaign. I saw how much the New Zealanders got behind it and for me if I donated out of my own pocket I wouldn’t be able to donate that much,” he said.
“If it’s something like this that people can get behind it and we can raise a lot of money and help people, that makes it a lot easier.
“Tim was probably the catalyst in my mind, I just needed a shirt that was capable of generating that kind of attention,” he quipped.
Starship Foundation CEO Aisha Daji Punga said the funds raised from the shirt will have a positive impact on children and their families.
“Play specialists make tough times more bearable for children and their whanau,” she said.
As of Thursday shortly before 3pm, the shirt had fetched a bid of $5100. The auction closes next Wednesday, May 11.
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