Cricket for Christchurch: rare signed memorabilia sells today for charity

As we've reported, the tragic events in Christchurch have inspired some to use collectibles for charitable purposes. In some cases this has been very unconventional, with one man auctioning a rock which he never intended to own in the first place.

But the drive takes more conventional forms too. In the same vein as Kevin Pietersen's efforts for the Australian floods, Black Caps captain Daniel Vettori has broken into his memorabilia collection for the benefit of helping victims, and you need to get involved today if you want a piece.

The left handed spinner is offering items which include his personal collection of test shirts he's played in (dating from 1997 through until 2011), a shirt signed by both Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralidaran and another signed by more of the game's superstars: Brian Lara, Muttiah Muralidaran, Sachin Tendulkar, Adam Gilchrist, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting and Rahul Dravid.

We've already seen in our Top 5 pieces of cricket memorabilia how valuable memorabilia associated with Tendulkar can be. The items offered by Vettori are already guaranteed to sell for four figure sums or better.

Perhaps the shirt signed by Australia's Warne and Sri Lanka's Muralidaran deserves further comment. Warne and Muralidaran are the world's greatest wicket-takers in Test match history, taking 708 and 800 respectively.

Vettori's own clutch of 345 looks a little paltry by comparison - but in fact this already puts him in the top 20 Test wicket takers of all time, and in fact makes him the number one left arm spinner in history (and he's still playing).

This should make the shirt linking the three spinners a strong investment if you can get it. The online auction closes in ten hours' time.