Growth of public interest in cricket on New Zealand Cricket's internet site has resulted in the country's first server being installed by CricInfo.com to speed up the delivery of the country's most popular sports site.

CricInfo.com, which hosts nzcricket.co.nz, the web site of New Zealand Cricket and CLEAR Communications which is hosting the server, have responded to the intense public interest in the cricket site this year. More than twelve million individual page impressions have been made on the New Zealand site in December and January, an increase in traffic of 44 per cent on the same period last year.

With the Pakistan series starting next week, traffic on the site is set to be higher than ever. nzcricket.co.nz will feature in-depth coverage of the National Bank One-Day Internationals and Test Series, including live text commentary and ball-by-ball scorecards, news, interviews and pictures. A fantasy cricket competition is already running on the site, where users have the opportunity to win a Laver & Wood handcrafted cricket bat.

Earlier this season CricInfo was title sponsor of the Women's World Cup in New Zealand and broadcast video and audio coverage of every match from the tournament live on the web site.

The CLEAR Black Caps' series against Sri Lanka and South Africa also featured prominently on the site. In November 2000, in addition to unveiling the new NZC site, CricInfo also launched sites for all six of New Zealand's major cricket associations. This season has also seen every match in the State Insurance Cup and the Shell Cup given live ball-by-ball coverage for the first time.

CricInfo New Zealand chief executive Adrian Motherway said today the increased usage of the site was such that the facility to speed the service to users was a must.

"Together with CLEAR Communications, who are hosting the server, we will make the experience of surfing the CricInfo site faster, which will be better for all New Zealand cricket fans. The easiest way to get the faster service is to click on www.cricinfo.com and then choose the New Zealand flag," he said.

Motherway said New Zealand has the highest per capita use of CricInfo from all ICC member countries around the world. "We are clearly established, by independent surveys, as New Zealand's Number One sports site. We achieved that status during the hosting of the CricInfo Women's World Cup in December and we have maintained that position since," he said.

New Zealand Cricket's chief executive Christopher Doig said he was delighted with the public response to the service being provided for New Zealand cricket fans by CricInfo.

"The internet is a new way of looking at cricket and we can see from these figures that there is still a huge silent following for cricket. People may not always go to the games but they still follow cricket. These figures also reinforce the notion that New Zealanders are very savvy computer users. We know there is enormous support for the game out there and we are just going through a blip at the moment. But there is no question about it, things are going to improve," he said.

ABOUT CRICINFO LIMITED

CricInfo Limited is the world's leading digital cricket information company. CricInfo's web site, www.cricinfo.com, is the most popular cricket site in the world and is among the internet's most popular sports sites, estimated to reach more than fifteen million fans in 180 countries. The site has recorded more than 100 million page impressions for each of the last two months including a record 111,993,807 page impressions in December 2000.

CricInfo has its Head Office in the UK, with national offices in New Zealand, Australia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Satyam Infoway Limited (NASDAQ: SIFY), India's leading internet services and e-commerce company, acquired a 25% stake in CricInfo in May 2000.

CricInfo works with cricket boards and cricket organisations, blue chip companies and the media to deliver cricket content for a wide range of different platforms. It currently produces official sites for eight of the ten Test-playing countries, for the ICC and for a number of domestic teams worldwide.

For further information, please contact:
Graham McKechnie, Press Officer, CricInfo Ltd.
Telephone: +44 (0) 1249 700733, email: grahamm@cricinfo.com