CricInfo, the world's leading cricket Internet company, today announced a one-year sponsorship agreement with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) that will see the company become title sponsors of the First Class County Championship.

The sponsorship will begin immediately with the first round of CricInfo Championship Matches commencing tomorrow morning.

Announcing the sponsorship deal, ECB Chief Executive Tim Lamb said: "We are delighted to have secured CricInfo as the new sponsor of the County Championship. CricInfo have managed the ECB's web site, ECB.co.uk, since June 2000 and this has helped generate huge on-line interest in English Cricket. As one of the largest websites in the world, they will provide a huge global platform for raising interest and awareness in our domestic four-day game."

CricInfo's Managing Director, Peter Griffiths, said, "This is a very exciting move for CricInfo. The CricInfo Championship will retain the format that proved so popular with players and spectators alike in 2000. The world's longest established domestic cricket competition is followed on CricInfo and ECB.co.uk by very large numbers of people. We hope to use this Internet platform to promote the competition which this year looks to be more competitive than ever."

In a further move, CricInfo today announced that they will be the title sponsor of this summer's Women's Test and One-Day International Series against Australia. This sponsorship builds on CricInfo's involvement as the title sponsor of the Women's World Cup in New Zealand in December 2000, which was won by New Zealand.

Reflecting on both announcements, ECB Chief Executive Tim Lamb said: "This is another piece of good news for cricket following our recent announcement of major new sponsorship deals with npower for domestic Test Cricket and Cheltenham and Gloucester for The Trophy competition. We look forward to working with CricInfo to achieve the widest possible exposure for the domestic Four-Day game."

The contract was negotiated by ECB's Commercial Department in conjunction with its agency, Sportsworld Media Group.