CRICKET officials in Dunedin have apologised for using the slogan "It's all white here" to promote a Test match between New Zealand and the visiting West Indies side in the city next month, it was reported yesterday.

The slogan has been dubbed racist and insulting to the visitors, but Otago cricket chief executive Ross Dykes said: "We just wanted a catchy phrase to help sell the game.

"It was all based around the association of the colour with cricket," he told the Otago Daily Times, referring to the white clothes worn by Test cricketers.

Dykes said he had wrote to the West Indies team manager and the chief executive of the West Indies Cricket Board to explain the slogan, and would be "mortified" if anyone saw it as a racial slur. "I respect the opinions of others who may well think that it is insensitive," he said. "To those people, I apologise."

Former Pakistan international cricketer and commentator Billy Ibadulla said the slogan was in poor taste, while a former West Indies and New Zealand cricketer, Sam Guillen, 84, who lives in Christchurch, told The Press newspaper: "I know exactly how the players will feel. The first thing that will go through their mind is it's white against black, which should never come into sport."

DPA