Jos Buttler raises £65,000 for coronavirus fight with England Cricket World Cup Final shirt auction

Jos Buttler has raised over £65,000 for charities assisting in the battle against coronavirus by auctioning the shirt he wore during England's last-gasp Cricket World Cup Final victory over New Zealand.

Last week, the 29-year-old - whose run out of Martin Guptill off the final ball of a thrilling Super Over in July 2019 secured an unforgettable victory at Lord's - announced he was putting his pale blue one-day jersey on eBay to raise funds for the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals Charity after they launched a emergency appeal to buy life-saving equipment to help those affected by Covid-19.

Buttler told The Sun that his wife Louise’s aunt is head of paediatrics at the Royal Brompton in London, with a number of his international team-mates having already joined in donating to her fundraising page.

The chance to own the shirt worn by the man who secured England's maiden World Cup victory in such dramatic fashion unsurprisingly piqued a lot of interest, with bids quickly rising in excess of £50,000.

That reached more than £64,000 in the hours before the conclusion of the auction, which wrapped up at 7:30pm BST on Tuesday evening with a winning offer of £65,100.

Professional cricket in England is currently suspended until at least May 28 as a result of the coronavirus crisis, with England's tour of Sri Lanka having been abandoned and the IPL - where Buttler plays for the Rajasthan Royals - also postponed until April 15 at the earliest.

Buttler is one of the centrally-contracted England cricketers that last week made an initial donation of £500,000 to "good causes" and the ECB, equivalent to 20 per cent of all players’ retainers over the next three months.

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