England: Cricket gives sour Rice the pip (24 February 1999)

24 February 1999

England: Cricket gives sour Rice the pip

By Claire Middleton

ANNEKA RICE, whose role was supposedly to persuade women of the virtues of cricket, brought a refreshing new slant to public relations yesterday when she condemned the sport as "worse than fishing".

The television personality was speaking at Lord's, where she suggested the only good thing about the one-day game was that it "finished in time for a gin and tonic and Blind Date".

She is fronting a campaign for Outspan, the orange people, who are spending around £1 million sponsoring the World Cup, which starts in May. However, she believes cricket has a long way to go before women will be tempted through the turnstiles.

"It's a very dodgy sport to watch," she said. "Frankly, the sport needs a bit of help."

Outspan are planning a national survey to see how many women are interested in cricket - "which should take about five minutes," said Rice - and are launching a free magazine explaining the basics of the game. Bodyline features a bare-chested hunk on the front cover with what can only be a couple of Outspans down his trousers.

While Terry Blake, the World Cup tournament director, looked startled at Rice's unexpected assault and Nasser Hussain, the England batsman, accepted it as "constructive criticism", Lorraine Kirby, the marketing manager of Outspan, put on a brave face.

"It's a light-hearted, cheeky campaign," she said. "We want to make the terminology less daunting and help women understand the difference between a full toss and a googly. However, we don't want to be patronising." Quite.

Rice saw it more as a vehicle to persuade those who shop in supermarkets - who are, of course, mainly women - to buy more oranges. "It's clearly aimed at women who buy fruit," she said.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)