Johannesburg, Three matches against India in Northern Ireland last year helped to substantially reduce the losses incurred by Cricket South Africa (CSA) in its last fiscal.

CSA financial chief Hentie Wyk said here the loss of 16.3 million rands was much lower than the 72 million rands loss that had been budgeted.

Describing the 55 million rand buffer as a "a big bonus", Van Wyk told the Afrikaans daily Beeld here that CSA knew beforehand that it would be a lean year.

"Another lean year lies ahead, but with the 130 million rands profit of two years ago, we still have enough reserves to keep the pot boiling. Although losses are never good news, we are glad that they were not as large as originally feared."

Van Wyk said the series in Northern Ireland with India, the high interest rate, cost cutting measures and increased revenue from television coverage had contributed to the loss for the year being lower than expected.

"The tours to New Zealand and the West Indies were, from a television coverage point of view, not profitable at all."

Van Wyk warned that the brakes would have to be put on in the coming year to keep expected further losses to a minimum.

CSA President Norman Arendse said that the International Cricket Council had given CSA a bonus of 2 million rands for the success of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup which had been played out in South Africa last year.

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