da dobrowin： Allen Stanford and his 20/20 board of directors have invited thewinners of the World Twenty20 in Johannesburg to play a one-off,$5million, match at Stanford’s ground in Antigua
Andrew McGlashan in Johannesburg24-Sep-2007
Allen Stanford: tempting the Test nations with big money © Cricinfo
Allen Stanford and his 20/20 board of directors have invited thewinners of the World Twenty20 in Johannesburg to play a one-off,$5million, match at Stanford’s ground in Antigua. The game ispencilled in for June 29 against a Super Star Team selected from theplayers taking part in the 2008 Stanford 20/20.”Since this is the first World Twenty20 and that is the format of ourtournament we felt it was fitting to have this team come and play ourSuper Star team next year,” said Stanford. “It will be the perfectculmination of our 2008 Stanford 20/20 programme [which takes place inJanuary and February 2008].”Because Stanford can’t invite a Full Member of ICC to play in thematch, the official invite will come from the West Indies Board. “Mr Hunte [thePresident of WICB] will actually be making the invitation on behalf ofStanford 20/20,” Stanford told Cricinfo during an event in Johannesburg. “We are going to invite the winner to come to Antigua for one night and play one game for $5m, winner takes all.”However, if India wins at the Wanderers it may not take up the offeras it has said it is unwilling to enter into a private event. Stanford has therefore made a contingency plan. “If the winner of this game chooses not come we are going to ask Australia as a back-up.”But this match has only come about as a compromise after Stanford’sinitial plan for a quadrangular event – involving Sri Lanka, India,Australia and South Africa – was scuppered by the TV deal between ICCand ESPN-Star.”What we wanted to do was invite Sri Lanka, India, Australia and SouthAfrica to come down and play on Friday, Saturday and Wednesday, and then you come out with a winner who then plays our Super Stars the following Saturday,” explained Stanford. “I called it 20/20 for 20 – $20million dollars for the winner. But because EPSN-Star are locked into this big contract with ICC it eliminated me getting fourteams.”We needed to get their permission and had a meeting scheduled here inJohannesburg with them, but they didn’t show up. Now I think it isgoing to be too big an issue to get ready for this year, because ourtournament starts in January so we optedfor this one-off game. We wanted the four-team play-off but there is alot of bureaucracy.”Stanford is in Johannesburg with nine of his board members includingJoel Garner, Michael Holding, Viv Richards and Desmond Haynes.Although the meeting with ESPN-Star fell through, they met withMalcolm Speed and ICC members in what Stanford called “constructivemeetings” although the feeling between the two is still strained.