San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al In­dus­try Re­la­tions Di­rec­tor David Rop­er says his com­pa­ny is very proud of the rich brand of crick­et the West In­dies teams have been de­liv­er­ing and hap­py to be a part of this brand with the cur­rent team at the ICC World Cup.

Rop­er made the com­ment to the play­ers as San­dals, the team’s spon­sor at the cur­rent tour­na­ment, host­ed them to a team din­ner at the Prin­ci­pal Ho­tel in Man­ches­ter on Tues­day night.

Said Rop­er: "When you look around in this room you would see some of the great play­ers of the past and you are now the cur­rent and fu­ture of this brand called West In­dies.

"This is not our first for­ay as far as spon­sor­ing West In­dies crick­et. In fact, it is the third time that we are spon­sor­ing the team and we are very hap­py with the as­so­ci­a­tion.”

He added, "San­dals is a world-class qual­i­ty brand and we have as­so­ci­at­ed with a brand that is such in crick­et and hope to have a long and mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ship. Tonight we just want to show you that San­dals care and we are here for you and wish you all the best as the tour­na­ment con­tin­ues."

Al­so speak­ing on the night was su­per fan Pe­ter Matthews, who said Rop­er was a big­ger West In­dies fan than he was.

"David is what you would call a su­per fan. In ad­di­tion to his role in hav­ing San­dals spon­sor West In­dies crick­et, busi­ness aside, he re­al­ly has West In­dies crick­et at heart."

Matthews, who fol­lows the team around the world to sup­port them, added that Rop­er would al­ways call him to find out about the team's for­tunes and is a nev­er say die type sup­port­er of the brand. He called on the play­ers to give that ex­tra 10 per cent to make sure they are more suc­cess­ful just as a trib­ute to the love that Rop­er and San­dals have shown them.