New Delhi: Cricket is feeling the chill of the economic freeze.
Vodafone says it will not be renewing its £4m-a-year sponsorship deal with the England team.
The contract expires in 13 months. This leaves the ECB looking for a new sponsor at a time when the global economy is in one of its worst downturns.
ECB admits that it is "not the greatest time" to look out for a new sponsor. But it hopes to match the existing £4m a year deal.
Vodafone's decision to end the deal comes after it announced a 1bn-pound global cost-cutting plan last month.
ECB is also in the process of renegotiating its sponsorship deals with Npower and NatWest.
The agreement, which will have run for 12 years by the time it ends after England's tour of South Africa in 2009-10, was originally negotiated by Lord MacLaurin when he was chairman of both the England and Wales Cricket Board and Vodafone.
"It's the first time a major sports property has come on to the market for a number of years," said Perera.
"It's unique, the real attraction is the number of playing days. The England team are playing for around 100 days a year and that goes up to 150 with training and preparing."
However, Perera said sponsorship made up only around 15 per cent of the ECB's annual revenue and that its television deals, signed before the downturn, brought in around 80 per cent.
"The decision to go early (with the TV deals) has started to look very smart from the ECB's point of view," he added of the £300m domestic deal with Sky, with highlights on Five, and the £40m international deal with ESPN Star Sports. The new TV deals run from 2010 to 2013, which could lead to thousands of job losses, and an overhaul of senior management in recent years.
The cricket-loving "Newbury Gang" that helped build Vodafone into the world's largest mobile-phone company in the 1990s included several enthusiasts.
Aside from MacLaurin, who quit the ECB in 2003 and stepped down from Vodafone in 2006, the long-standing chief executive Sir Chris Gent was a huge fan of the game. But his replacement Arun Sarin, born in India but educated in the US, was not similarly minded.
Vodafone, which has invested hundreds of millions in sports sponsorship in recent years, recently shifted its strategy following a global review. It ended its Manchester United shirt-sponsorship deal in favour of sponsoring the Champions League and swapped Ferrari for McLaren in formula one in an innovative deal that saw it incorporated into the team's name.
In the UK it downgraded its sponsorship of the Epsom Derby meeting, attaching its name only to the flagship race. It is believed that the company, which channels its sponsorship budget largely into sport, may now spend some on music and entertainment.
Ian Shepherd, consumer director of Vodafone UK, said, "We've enjoyed a successful relationship with the ECB and the England team over the last 12 years and the sponsorship has provided us with a platform to build the Vodafone brand and add value to our customers."
"We remain fully committed to the successful conclusion of the sponsorship at the end of the winter tour of South Africa and we look forward to an exciting summer ahead with the Ashes. We are also working with the ECB to develop a legacy programme at grassroots level which builds on the long-term investment we have made in the success of cricket across England and Wales," he added.
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