21 C&W cricket pitches for Caribbean

The company is donating 21 moveable match pitches to communities across the Caribbean, as part of Cable & Wireless’ official regional sponsorship of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007.

According to senior vice-president of corporate marketing Rachelle Franklin, "We at Cable & Wireless are excited about the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 coming to the Caribbean. And we have a long history of supporting cricket at the local level.

"This donation programme makes perfect sense and we hope that it will enable better access to the game for communities across the Caribbean for years to come. We are thankful that the Local Organising Committees, and other national cricket associations have supported our efforts to get these pitches into the communities that need them."

The first pitch donation took place in the British Virgin Islands on October 15. The pitch was donated to the local cricket association.

Other donations will be made throughout the Caribbean in the coming weeks, to cricket organisations in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St Lucia, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos and Trinidad and Tobago.

Chief Executive Officer of ICC CWC2007 West Indies Chris Dehring said, "I am very pleased with the initiative Cable & Wireless have taken across the region with their pitch donation programme.

"As we lead up to World Cup 2007, we are all acutely aware of the community support that is necessary for the nurturing and development of future West Indian cricket.

"Enabling greater access for youth to the game, and supporting ‘Coach the Coaches’ programmes at places such as the Jamaica Cricket Association’s centres of excellence receiving pitches today, is just the kind of support we need from the community to ensure that West Indian cricket is a success in 2007 and beyond."

The cricket pitches are an assembly of over 6000 interlocking plastic tiles to form one continuous flat surface to create a portable cricket pitch.

The surface consists of small hexagonal holes. The roughened area provides a surface for the cricket ball to grip and bounce, ensuring one of the most versatile cricketing surfaces on the market.

These pitches will allow cricket to be played on any available flat surface where access to a cricket pitch is not readily available.