Dubai–The In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) yes­ter­day un­veiled its team of dis­tin­guished crick­eters who will con­tribute ex­pert columns in the lead up to and dur­ing the ICC's pin­na­cle event, the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2015, which be­gins in Aus­tralia and New Zealand on 14 Feb­ru­ary.The first-per­son columns were avail­able from the On­line Me­dia Zone on a dai­ly ba­sis from yes­ter­day, and me­dia can down­load these for free ed­i­to­r­i­al use.

ICC's ex­pert colum­nists in­clude Amin­ul Is­lam (Bangladesh), Andy Bichel (Aus­tralia), Al­is­tair Camp­bell (Zim­bab­we), Paul Colling­wood (Eng­land), Stephen Flem­ing (New Zealand), Trent John­ston (Ire­land), Javed Mian­dad (Pak­istan), Mut­ti­ah Mu­ral­i­daran (Sri Lan­ka), Sir Vi­vian Richards (West In­dies), Graeme Smith (South Africa) and Jav­a­gal Sri­nath (In­dia).In ad­di­tion to these stal­warts, In­dia's Sachin Ten­dulkar and Bal­winder Singh Sand­hu, Al­lan Bor­der of Aus­tralia, West In­dies' Court­ney Walsh and Pak­istan's In­za­mam-ul-Haq will al­so con­tribute ex­clu­sive ar­ti­cles for the ICC.

This ini­tia­tive is a fur­ther en­hance­ment of the ICC's on­go­ing ser­vice to crick­et fans and glob­al me­dia as these cel­e­brat­ed crick­eters will share their in­sight, knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence through the On­line Me­dia Zone.

In the lead up to the tour­na­ment, the colum­nists will dis­cuss a wide range of top­ics, in­clud­ing re­flect­ing on their time at ICC Crick­et World Cups, as­sess­ing their re­spec­tive sides, talk­ing about their highs and lows, dis­cussing how One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al crick­et has evolved over the years, look­ing back at some of the best crick­eters to have played this ex­cit­ing for­mat, and look­ing for­ward to the play­ers to watch out for dur­ing the tour­na­ment.Once the event kicks off, the guest writ­ers will pre­view and analyse match­es as the world's 14 best sides go head to head for the ul­ti­mate prize in the sport in the 44-day tour­na­ment dur­ing which 49 match­es will be played.

Sachin Ten­dulkar's col­umn From ball boy to World Cup win­ner will be the first of a se­ries of first-per­son ar­ti­cles, which was re­leased yes­ter­day. This ar­ti­cle will be fol­lowed by pieces by Stephen Flem­ing, Javed Mian­dad and Sir Vi­vian Richards.Be­sides re­leas­ing ex­clu­sive print con­tent, the ICC will al­so dis­trib­ute video in­ter­views of Grant Flower (Zim­bab­we), Richard Illing­worth (Eng­land), Anil Kum­ble and Jav­a­gal Sri­nath (both In­dia), Clive Lloyd (West In­dies), Adam Gilchrist and Ge­off Marsh (both Aus­tralia), and Waqar You­nis (Pak­istan).

Fur­ther­more, an ex­clu­sive video in­ter­view with ICC Chief Ex­ec­u­tive David Richard­son, who rep­re­sent­ed South Africa in the ICC Crick­et World Cup 1992 and was ICC's Gen­er­al Man­ag­er–Crick­et at the pre­vi­ous three events, will be re­leased on 13 Jan­u­ary, a day be­fore the world cel­e­brates one-month to go to the start of the tour­na­ment.This and oth­er video in­ter­views will be avail­able on the On­line Me­dia Zone and can be down­loaded for free ed­i­to­r­i­al use. When us­ing these video clips, TV news chan­nels will be re­quest­ed to cred­it the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil and are re­mind­ed that the con­tent can be used for ed­i­to­r­i­al pur­pos­es on­ly for a pe­ri­od of 14 days from the date of first re­lease by the ICC.

Com­ment­ing on the ini­tia­tive, ICC chief ex­ec­u­tive David Richard­son said: "The in­volve­ment of these high­ly re­spect­ed crick­eters in the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2015 in a jour­nal­is­tic role is an ex­cit­ing ini­tia­tive. I am sure this en­hance­ment will a broad­er and bet­ter per­spec­tive of the game, and at the same time will take the cov­er­age and pro­mo­tion of ICC's pin­na­cle event to a new next lev­el."Colling­wood, who is Eng­land's lead­ing run-get­ter in ODIs and cap­tained his coun­try's 50-over side from 2007 to 2009, said: "I am de­light­ed to be work­ing as a guest writer for the ICC for the ICC Crick­et World Cup 2015. It will sure­ly be an ex­cit­ing event and I look for­ward to shar­ing my opin­ions with you in the weeks ahead."