London: Some in the English press are calling it a bloodless coup but billionaire Allen Stanford probably has no time to read newspapers.
He arrived at the home of cricket in regal style to announce cricket's latest stunner: on November 1 at his own ground in Antigua, an England eleven will play a West Indies eleven in a T20 bash.
"It is a one night, winner-takes-all $ 20 million game. The winner goes home happy, the loser goes home unhappy,” Stanford explains.
Stanford has been running a tournament in the Caribbean for the last couple of years and seems to have successfully seduced the game's administrators there.
"We need this investment in the infrastructure of cricket to underpin our own strategic plan. So, if you do not see me looking like I am not smiling, I am smiling on the inside," says West Indies Cricket Board President Dr Julian Hunte.
Some of the game's greatest names were there — all perhaps wondering but not expressing their fear for the future of the traditional test cricket games. Stanford, however, was more blunt.
"Test cricket is a foundation, it is what cricket came from. Twenty20, however, is the future, and that's where you will make your money," he adds.
Plans are also in the pipeline for an annual four-nation tournament worth nearly $ 10 million for the next five years.
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