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England gets $100m for T20
19/04/2008 10:30 - (SA)
London - Texas billionaire Allen Stanford has offered to put up $100m for England to play five Twenty20 games against his West Indies All-Star team.
England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairperson Giles Clarke had said on Thursday that the prospect of England taking part in a winner-takes-all $20m match in West Indies was "very likely".
But after talks on Tuesday between Stanford and ECB chief executive David Collier, the American told The Times that he believed the richest single game of cricket would be just the start of a series that would make millionaires of the England players.
The first $20m game would be on Independence Day in Antigua on November 01 and Stanford then wanted to alternate venues annually between his own purpose-built ground and Lord's.
"I talked to David about the first game and then how we could collaborate in the future," Stanford was quoted as saying in Saturday's Times. "I said that it could be an annual event, maybe we could come to Lord's in 2009 and then alternate.
"I would be happy to make a five-year commitment. Asked if that meant $100m. He said: "I'd be willing to do it. The money is real and I think we will get a game."
ECB 'will grab this opportunity'
The BBC reported on Thursday that the American was also keen to help create an English Twenty20 league and the ECB is eager to appease players keen to cash in on lucrative tournaments.
"We are spending a lot of time looking at creating a robust, sustainable and economically viable league that still protects our core revenues of Test cricket," Clarke said.
Last year Stanford, who had already funded a full Twenty20 Caribbean regional tournament, gave West Indies cricket $100m over three years in what he described as a bid to bring the game into the 21st century.
"England are in a position of choosing which way they want to go," Stanford added in his Times interview. "They can embrace the Twenty20 revolution which started in your country, or they can sit back and let India and the others determine the future.
"I think the ECB will grab this opportunity and guide the game into the future better than anyone else."
- Reuters
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