Canada cricket optimistic over sponsors

Cricket Canada is confident that it can overcome the loss of sponsors Scotiabank as it prepares for a busy year of international cricket and plans to host a global limited-over event that will put Canadian cricket at the centre of the world's calendar.

Canadian cricket has been on the verge of crisis after it emerged in November that a $500,000 deal with Scotiabank had collapsed but Ranjit Saini, the board's interim president, told Cricinfo he is confident Canada can rebuild and perform well next year.

"We're on the edge of a year of success," he said. "Despite the shoe-string budget we're on, we have the combination of players, coaches and administrators to find success. I believe we've turned the corner and are now on our way to becoming a well respected associate nation."

With associate nations like the Netherlands and Ireland having enjoyed good recent outings in international tournaments, and Ireland even pushing the ICC for full-member status, Saini has set clear targets for Canada's on-field progress next year.

"Qualifying for the Twenty20 World Cup is important and we want the Under 19s to progress to the Super Eights stage in the World Cup in January. Also the women's team qualifying for the World Cup, which is very likely, would represent a good year and be a big morale booster to everyone involved in Canadian cricket."

But the loss of Scotiabank, especially given the circumstances where the company labelled Cricket Canada's performance as "unsatisfactory", overshadows on-field achievements. Saini, however, was at pains to point out the deal had not ended acrimoniously despite evidence to the contrary.

"Scotiabank were going to sponsor us for a further three-year agreement and they wouldn't have done this if they were unhappy with the previous one. The proposal was, however, difficult for us to take up. They had a set of requirements, which we would be unable to meet without extra funding."

Scotiabank, he continued, were looking for greater exposure and wanted Cricket Canada to commit money up-front for a domestic tournament alongside an expanded grassroots programme, but Saini said that this would have been impossible.

"The geography of Canada is enormous, moving people around the country requires a lot of time and a lot of money. To run six teams for Under-19 cricket and six teams for a senior tournament would a cost a bare minimum of $300,000 - that's just the minimum.

"If you then had to deliver the schools programme in addition there's a further $200,000 to $250,000. The ICC funding, once you have paid the players' salaries and the mandatory costs that come up, would not be enough - you'll have players on a contract but no grounds to play on, you'll have a coach but no money to buy the balls. So it's a sad story but there is nothing we could do about it."

Even though the board's income is now without Scotiabank's cash, Saini insisted it had taken on board what happened and was developing new plans to attract finance to the game, which could see a multitude of sponsors getting on board.

"We have developed a different strategy; we will look for smaller, local sponsors for $5000 each, and see if we can build from that. And then we're looking at government sponsors as well, and now we've learned our lesson, we could plan differently and do proper costing from the beginning; if a big sponsor came along we could accept that."