(13 March 2007 2:30 pm)

MUMBAI: MSN India announced a new cricket channel www.msncricket.com for the coverage of World Cup. The online site will be accessible on the internet and on WAP supported mobile phones. MSN India aims to deliver exclusive content to cricket fans across the country and even those fans that are 'on the move.'

The website will have all the news and action from the Caribbean. It will also feature exclusive columns from Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming, Graeme Smith and Mahela Jayawardene.

The site also consists of other features like World Cup schedule, team profiles, pitch reports, photo galleries, controversies, match previews, live scorecards, slideshows and an audio update of all the cricketing action.

"The World Cup is the Holy Grail of cricket and we are more than excited to be able to provide the followers of the game a holistic experience with our extended coverage. We are also giving our users all the action of the World Cup on their fingertips with a World Cup Cricket WAP portal!" said MSN India executive producer Krishna Prasad.

MSN India will also bring out a downloadable Windows Mobile World Cup application. Users with Windows Mobile platform phones can load the application to their phones and get live updates on the matches as it happens on GPRS without having to send an SMS every time.

Windows Vista Users can look forward to another attraction on their computers called the Vista World Cup Sidebar Gadget which provides constant live score updates and feedback on the desktop. MSN also has an exclusive with its WAP Portal. The features available on the WAP portal include top cricket stories, the World Cup schedule, live scorecards and a cricket trivia link.

Online games like MSN Clicket and Cricket Live are also on offer. Clicket is a predict and win game where users can choose their players for each match and earn points based on their accuracy of playing team predictions. Cricket - Live is an interactive multi player game built around a community of cricket fans and trade players to create a team for the World Cup. MSN's photographers will put up exclusive images on the MSN cricket channel.