IRELAND's heroic cricket squad will receive all the prize money they earn in the World Cup.

"The team have earned every penny, " Irish Cricket Union (ICU) honorary secretary John Wright told the Sunday Tribune yesterday.

The sum to be divided will be a minimum of US$72,500 ( 54,536), or around 4,000 a head.

The team earned $22,500 for the results in the group stage, where they beat Pakistan, tied with Zimbabwe and lost to the West Indies.

The prize money in the Super Eight stages is staggered, with the team finishing last collecting $50,000. The seventh-place team picks up $100,000 and winnings rise by $50,000 per place up to fourth when it accelerates.

The winners earn $2,400,000.

The Irish Cricket Union stands to reap huge benefits from the performances of its players in Jamaica. The commercial profile of the sport has received a huge boost, and according to an ICU source, six or seven large companies are eager to get in on the act.

The Irish team is sponsored by Bank of Ireland, but the bank has been forced to take a back seat at the tournament as one of the World Cup's commercial partners is Scotiabank. The team usually wear the bank's logo on their kit but have had to wear the word 'IRELAND' across their shirts here. A consolation for the bank is the large number of appearances of supporters wearing its name and logos in the worldwide media.

The ICU is in negotiations with some of the biggest names in Irish business about getting their names on the shirts. Irish mobile phone company Digicell . . . enormously successful here in the Caribbean . . . is precluded from involvement because Cable & Wireless is a World Cup sponsor.

The ICU was also delighted to hear that the bill for the Magee suits worn by the team at official functions here has been torn up by the firm. Suddenly everyone wants a piece of these cricketers.

The commitment shown by the mostly amateur squad has been extraordinary.

Every weekend since last summer, players have travelled from as far as Strabane and Kilkenny to their training centre in north county Dublin. Others spent six weeks at an International Cricket Council-funded High Performance Training Camp in South Africa.

Besides ten days at home in March, the squad has been on the road since early January at training and competition in South Africa, Kenya, Abu Dhabi and Trinidad. They have travelled 28,100 miles, more than the circumference of the planet.

The Northern Ireland sports council has been paying the salaries of the five players from the North since last September, all of whom have been granted sabbaticals from their jobs. The Republic-based players have had their salaries paid by the ICU since they went into fulltime training in early January.

The ICU's John Wright flies home today for a short break and meetings with the two sports councils, but has already been told by sports minister John O'Donoghue that any requests for increased funding will be looked upon favourably.

Clubs around Ireland are also keen to benefit from the increased interest with the local season due to start in three weeks' time.

"Many of the clubs hold camps during the Easter holidays, " said Wright, "I urge any boys and girls who'd like to sample the game to come along to those. They'll be sure of a warm welcome."

Clubs in the Dublin area that have confirmed Easter camps include Railway Union in Sandymount and Malahide.