Digicel, the Caribbean’s leading mobile provider, and the West Indies Cricket Board, announced today that it will enter a new extended partnership arrangement until September 2012 that will provide the support that West Indies cricket needs to further establish their position as a dominant cricketing force.

Lance Gibbs, Bruce Aanensan and Kevin White

The agreement guarantees yearly sponsorship payments of at least US$4 million and includes the continuation of the Digicel player incentive fund and a comprehensive youth programme. At the same time, Digicel will continue its own programme of development initiatives such as the Digicel Cricket Scholarship and Training Clinics and has expressed its willingness to be part of the proposed Academy for West Indies cricket.

The new contract, which comes into effect ahead of the Windies away tour to South Africa in October 2007, offers enhanced opportunities for the WICB to attract more corporate sponsorship of West Indies cricket. These include branding rights at test match grounds and sponsorship rights to any tri-nations series the WICB might develop.

Signing of the contract

“The West Indies Cricket Board places great value on Digicel’s partnership with West Indies Cricket and is pleased to have evolved our relationship in the best interest of West Indies cricket” said WICB President Ken Gordon. “The company is as committed as we are to a common vision of returning West Indies cricket to the top of world rankings. Even when our cricketing fortunes are in decline, Digicel has demonstrated unswerving faith in our powers of recovery. The partnership provides Windies cricket with valuable support in reaching this goal”.

According to Kevin White, Digicel Group’s Chief Operations Officer, “As a company that was born in the Caribbean, Digicel sees its involvement in West Indies Cricket as a way to support the major passions of our customers and as long as this passion continues then we are committed to continue to support the game. Just as our approach to our core business, we will continually raise the bar on our support and exceed what has gone before”.

Since 2004 Digicel’s aim has been to go beyond this investment to work with the WICB and people of Caribbean to genuinely help cricket. During the recently concluded Windies tour of England, Digicel funded a specialist fielding coach and team psychologist as well as announced the Digicel Cricket Scholarship programme which allowed first recipient Jerome Taylor the opportunity to play English Country cricket with Leicestershire for the remainder of the English season.

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