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Five leading television companies are in the run to secure rights to telecast Asian Cricket Council's (ACC) various tournaments including this year's Asian Test Championship.

ESPN/ESS, Sony TV, Zee, TWI and WSG have pre-qualified and would now bid to win the rights, secretary of the ACC, Zakir Hussain Syed told Dawn on Saturday.

Zakir, who attended the ACC's Annual General Meeting in London on June 20, explained that the deal to air all ACC tournaments would be for a period of three years and would run between 2002 and 2005. "It will cover all tournaments, including the Asia Cup, ACC Trophy, under-19 and under 17 competitions."

"It is likely to generate huge sums, because television marketing has a huge potential in the sub-continent. Once finalised, it will prove to be a big boost for the ACC."

Zakir said that while the bidding for the 2002-2005 period might take sometime before it was finalised, the telecast rights for the Asian Test Championship would be awarded fairly soon. ACC's previous deal with TWI had expired in June.

The championship starting from September 1 is to be played between the four Test-playing countries of Asia - Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh with matches spread across the sub-continent.

The meeting also identified soft drink giants Coke and Pepsi for logo sponsorship along with two other big names Hero and Sahara.

Meanwhile, an ACC finance committee has been formed with Pakistan's Ehsan Mani as its chairman and India's P.K. Rungta and ACC treasurer Muhammad Naeem as its members. Rungta is also the treasurer of the Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI).

The new committee would be responsible for scrutinising and examining all budgetary proposals and has been formed on the pattern of the International Cricket Council (ICC), Zakir said.

Zakir, who will continue as the secretary of the council till June 2002 disclosed that a cricket week would be organised from December 30 this year but the venue was yet to be decided.

Although details of this programme were still being worked out, it was likely that the week would feature matches between Asian and African teams besides other events.

The first cricket week was organised by the ICC in Dhaka but this time the game's governing body had instructed the ACC to hold the event themselves.

The ACC's London meeting, held under the chairmanship of Lt. Gen Tauqir Zia, was attended by delegates from 24 countries including chairman of the Asian Cricket Foundation, Jagmohan Dalmiya and the president of the BCCI, A.C. Muthiah.

Other delegates were from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, UAE, Nepal, Kuwait, Hong Kong, Singapore and Fiji.

© Dawn