Carderoo is supporting Englishman Oli Broom, who's going to be cycling 25,000km to the first Ashes test match in Brisbane, on a bike with a cricket bat, all for charity.

I first heard about Oli's trip through The Corridor, a cricket blog written by Will Luke. Will connected me to Oli and I immediately thought that Carderoo should help out by providing Oli with a load of real postcards and a way to send postcards by email and to his Twitter account. We met in a pub in Marylebone a few weeks ago after he had just left his job and he's a great guy, full of energy, fearless adventurer and above all else, a slightly barking mad Englishman. I have always wanted to travel London to Cape Town and was fascinated by his routes through Sudan, before heading off by ferry to Mumbai. 

In short, Oli's expedition has 3 aims:

1. To cycle from Lord’s to The Gabba in time to see England play Australia in the first Ashes Test Match of the 2010/11 series. I’m hoping to have friends / colleagues join me for certain legs of the journey – quite a few have expressed an interest.

2. To raise £10 for every kilometre that I cycle (so about £250,000). Funds raised are to be divided between two charities – The Lord’s Taverners, whose mission sits very well next to the aims of the expedition – and the British Neurological Research Trust at UCL (a close friend I used to play cricket with broke his neck and is now paralysed and needs 24 hour care – the BNRT undertake ground breaking research into such injuries).

3. To play cricket in as many countries as I can on my way across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, the Sub-Continent, South-East Asia and Australia. These games wont all be scheduled matches, although I’m hoping to get a few proper ones through contacts at the ICC, MCC and Lords Taverners.

If you'd like to donate, please view: http://www.cyclingtotheashes.co.uk/how-to-donate.php

I wish Oli the best of British as he starts his trip next week and can't wait to view the postcards as they start to come through (assuming that the images are for Public viewings!!). As a few of you may know, I myself am a massive cricket fan. I have the best Twitter name in the world at @EnglandCricket and tweet as often as I can, have been on several England oversea's tours (Sri Lanka 01, New Zealand 02, Aus 03) and still play cricket reguilarly in London for Clapham In and The Whalers. I'd love to say that I'll be joining Oli watch England destroy our archrivals next year.