Canada sign deal with Etihad Airways

Cricket Canada and Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways have announced a deal where Etihad will become an official event partner and national program sponsor with the board.

"This partnership will remove cost barriers for our youth to access high quality academies worldwide," Cricket Canada president Ranjit Saini said. "Additionally our teams will be within reach of premier cricket destinations where we can play against high quality opposition and receive high performance coaching.

"The partnership helps us to remove the financial obstacles created by geographic challenges. We can now move our teams around the world more frequently and at a reduced cost. We can more readily explore the growing options to bring quality international and domestic fixtures to Canada and it gives us the opportunity to extend the reach of our high performance program while strengthening our international board relationships...a win-win situation for us.

"While we should commend the achievements made in the past few years by our High Performance program to take us as far as we've come, we are under-resourced for a nation of our size and cricket population. This program ensures [players] will be able to further hone their skills in the time between youth programs and when they reach the senior men's team. "

Through the deal, Etihad will provide Cricket Canada with round-trip airfare for Canada's elite development players to academies and coaching programs around the world as well as provide a significant capital contribution towards bringing high performance teams to Canada.

The agreement with Etihad is the third major partnership announced by Cricket Canada this quarter. Earlier in November Cricket Canada inked deals with Mercury Communications Group and clothing giant Reebok. Canada will carry the Etihad name at the upcoming Caribbean T20 tournament in January.