Ispat sponsor Windies at ICC Trophy

CARIBBEAN Ispat Limited will sponsor the West Indies cricketers at this year’s ICC Champions Trophy series. An announcement to this effect will be made at  a news conference at the Trinidad Hilton today. The ICC series is scheduled to begin in England on September 10, but the West Indies are not scheduled to go into action until September 15 against Bangladesh at Southampton. Ispat, a member of the LNG Group (Lakshmi N Mittal) last sponsored the West Indies cricketers during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa. Prior to the World Cup, Ispat also sponsored the West Indies on their 1994 tour of India. Today directors of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) headed by president Teddy Griffith will be at the news conference, together with officials from the sponsoring firm Caribbean Ispat Limited.

West Indies, beaten 4-0 by England in their npower Test series on their recent tour of England, and who also lost to New Zealand in the Natwest Trophy in England, have been grouped with Bangladesh and South Africa for preliminary round matches. With one team qualifying for the semi-finals, West Indies will have to beat group favourites South Africa to get into the knockout stage.  After losing in the final of the inaugural ICC Trophy to South Africa in 1998, West Indies have failed to advance past the first round of the last two series in 2000 and 2002. Skipper Brian Lara and his West Indies team are currently in Bermuda where they are involved in a live-in camp before leaving for England. Earlier this week they defeated Barbados by a slim 10-run margin in a warm-up match.  The West Indies were restricted to a meagre 133 for nine wickets in their allotted 50 overs with a top-score of  27 by Wavell Hinds. But Barbadian left arm pacer Ian Bradshaw took six wickets for 15 runs to bowl out the Bajans for 123.