R5-million World Cup carrot for South Africa

South Africa's World Cup cricketers have been given a R5-million incentive to win the biggest prize in one-day cricket, limited overs sponsors Standard Bank said on Monday.

Standard Bank has put up R1-million for each of five selected one-day series and tournaments ahead of the 2003 World Cup. Every time South Africa win one of these series, the R1-million will go into a kitty which will be carried forward to the World Cup. All R5-million, or as much as South Africa have managed to bank in kitty, will be staked on the World Cup with the South Africans standing to claim the entire amount if they win the tournament.

Of this prize money, 20 percent (or R1-million if the team wins all five of the series) will be donated to a designated development project with the remaining 80 percent to be shared out among the team. If South Africa reach the final, but fail to win, then they will receive 30 percent of their share of the kitty with the development project also receiving 30 percent of its share.

The five series nominated by Standard Bank are the upcoming series against the West Indies, two series against Australia (home and away), a series against India and a triangular tournament involving Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

John Bryant, Group Marketing Director of Standard Bank, said: "The R5-million kitty should be a huge incentive, not only for the team to win five of their forthcoming series and the World Cup, but also for players to ensure they are selected for the World Cup squad. The added incentive is that if they win, cricket development will receive a funding boost."

Responding to the announcement of the incentive, South African captain Shaun Pollock said: "As a player it is great to have a sponsor like Standard Bank behind you and the bank has really been a loyal supporter of our team. It is good to extend the sponsorship and the relationship. For us it's particularly good to have the World cup incentive. We'll be trying our best to win to win the World Cup - for ourselves, for our country, for our sponsors and for the people who can benefit from the incentive aspects of the incentive."

The incentive scheme comes with the announcement that Standard Bank have decided to extend their sponsorship of South African one-day cricket for a further four years until the end of the 2004/5 season. The new agreement will be worth R63-million in total.

It was also announced that the South African team will introduce a new numbering system, similar to that already used by Australia. While retaining his squad number, each player will be given a unique number, to be displayed on cap and shirt collar depending on when that player played his first one-day game for South Africa. Thus Allan Donald will be number 11, Shaun Pollock number 38 and when Justin Ontong makes his debut he will become number 65.