TWI-IMG to sponsor Indian team

The Board of Control for Cricket in India today accepted a joint bid offered by the International Management Group-TransWorld International combine to sponsor the Indian cricket team.

This follows the end of the existing arrangement with the International Tobacco Company, following the government's decision to disallow tobacco companies from advertising.

"The bids given by the IMG-TWI combine is the highest in all spheres," said Dr A C Muthiah, BCCI president and head of the finance committee. "This bid is in fact 49% per cent higher than we had from ITC.

As per the new terms, the combine will pay the Board Rs 1 crore per year for three years, for the Trophy title. It will also pay Rs 50 lakh per Test, and Rs 40 lakh per ODI, for labelled clothing, plus Rs 5.5 lakh per Test and Rs 4.25 lakh per ODI for logo on the non-leading arm (namely, the right arm of a right-hand batsman and vice versa).

The combine will in turn rope in sponsors for various periods of time. "We have been told that we will be told who the sponsors are once their bid is accepted," Muthiah said.

The board president said that although the deal was good, negotiations were still on to try and make it even better. "The new deal is July this year," Muthiah elaborated. "In the intervening time we are talking to ITC to find out if they would continue with their sponsorship, for the Zimbabwe tour."

The Wills Trophy will also be replaced by a new one, Muthiah said, depending on the sponsor roped in by the combine.

The BCCI had earlier called for bids, then scrapped them and called for fresh bids, leading to a threat from one of the first lot of bidders to go to court. Asked about this, Muthiah said that the BCCI had the right to accept or reject any bid. "Hero Honda had made a bid only for the Trophy, not for the entire package, and their bid was too low to be acceptable," he elaborated.

Referring to the players' demand for a contract system, Dr Muthiah said the BCCI was studying the request. "We are negotiating with the players," the board president said. "But let me make clear that the players cannot have it both ways, they can't have a contract with the board and also a contract with their present employers."

Referring to the upcoming meeting of the Asian Cricket Conference in Lahore later this week, Muthiah said the agenda was to fix international matches. "We are going by the directive of the Indian government. As far as bilateral matches with Pakistan are concerned they are out," he said. "But the government has already made it clear that they have no problems if India played against Pakistan in multilateral matches. We will work in accordance with that directive."