Mediator Hero Honda

World Cup sponsors Hero Honda have offered to help end the dispute over commercial contracts which could result in absence of top Indian players from cricket's showpiece tournament.

The Indian players, who make more money through endorsements than through match fees, are opposed to International Cricket Council (ICC) demands that they freeze personal advertising before, during and after the southern Africa based event so as not to clash with official sponsors.

Hero Honda, who are India's biggest motorbike manufacturers, said on Saturday the company would be prepared to help by relaxing its rights to the February 9 to March 23 event.

"We confirm that Hero Honda will walk any mile, and extend all flexibility, to ensure the participation of the Indian cricket team at the 2003 World Cup," a company statement said.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is backing its players, despite being a party to the ICC's 550 million dollars commercial rights deal with the Global Cricket Corporation (GCC) for its events up to 2007.

But Hero Honda warned that it had paid huge sums for the "competitive benefits" and that any negotiated dilution of the rights would affect the attractiveness of future ICC tournaments to sponsors.

"Let us not see emotion and convenience crowd out reason and fact," the statement said. "The various parties involved need to realise that getting big ticket sponsorships, without effective competitive benefits, would only mean a decline of sponsorship which cricket, of all games, has enjoyed in abundance."

The BCCI announced last week that all 15 squad members had signed "altered" World Cup contracts but were still unhappy about some terms relating to sponsorship.

The ICC has offered to ease some of the conditions and has warned that the BCCI would be in breach of contract and liable to a compensation claim if it failed to send its best players to the event, mainly being played in South Africa.

The dispute could yet end up in the Lausanne-based Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), an independent body set up to rule on sporting issues, for a binding ruling.

The India squad will leave for South Africa on January 29.