Viewers of the tri-nations cricket in South Africa on Friday might have been surprised to see, among the boundary adverts for lager and posh cars, the name of Nottingham University.

A far-sighted recruitment drive by a university which has given honorary degrees to Derek Randall and Sir Gary Sobers? Not quite.

"We organised it yesterday," said the marketing manager, Sue Kelliher. "It was a very quick turnaround.

"Our business school was contacted by the agency organising the perimeter advertising."

Less than £5,000 bought the university two boards bearing its name, logo and website address, and an international audience running into - well, thousands anyway.

"It was a very good opportunity," Ms Kelliher said.

Expansion drive

In keeping with other UK universities, with the enthusiastic backing of the government, Nottingham is keen to increase the number of overseas students it.

Currently it has about 22,565 undergraduates and postgraduates altogether, of whom 2,200 are international students from 105 different countries.

It is actively pursuing an international recruitment strategy and has agencies and alumni associations throughout the world.

South Africa is seen as potentially promising. Members of the university international office have paid a visit and are looking into ways of recruiting more students and enhancing business and research links.

"It's a market we're starting to look at," Ms Kelliher said.

"When this opportunity came up it seemed like a nice, unusual, innovative way to get our name across. It seemed too good to miss really."