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Stanford, the man who hit cricket for six
AFP - Saturday, February 21
LONDON (AFP) - - When Allen Stanford unveiled his 20 million dollar winner takes all Twenty20 match between his Caribbean Superstars and England, many in the cricket world were stunned and appalled.
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But the allegations levelled by the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week that Stanford and his companies were involved in "a fraud of shocking magnitude" worth more than nine billion dollars threaten to have consequences far beyond the confines of the sport.
The SEC charged Stanford and his companies with "orchestrating a fraudulent" investment scheme centering on an eight billion savings deposit plan as well as a 1.2 billion dollar mutual fund program.
Stanford, a Texan-born businessman and longtime resident of Antigua, came to cricket prominence when he announced he was putting 28 million dollars into funding a Caribbean wide Twenty20 tournament in 2005.
It was the kind of cash injection the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) could only dream about.
The story goes that when Stanford stepped off a plane in Antigua and saw airport workers playing cricket in a nearby pasture during a break, he vowed to build them a cricket ground and made good on that word with one just across from the airport.
It might have seemed egotistical to name the new venue the Stanford Cricket Ground but this was, after all, a man who had expanded a company founded by his grandfather in 1932 into a global operation.
However, he didn't stop there. He offered South Africa and India, cricket's economic powerhouse, a winner-takes-all match, before England finally took him up on the idea in 2008.
Yet from the moment Stanford arrived at London's Lord's Cricket Ground, with a box full of millions of dollars and proclaiming his Twenty20 "Super Series" could crack a US television market resistant to the sport's charm, there was a sense of unease about the project.
Stanford, 58, was after all a man who said he found five-day Test cricket - which most diehard fans believe to be the ultimate form of the game - "boring".
It was hard to imagine a fictional character better designed to upset cricket traditionalists than the one presented by Stanford.
This was an American who launched his Super Series by landing at Lord's, 'the home of cricket, in his private helicopter and who then unveiled a Perspex box which he assured his audience contained 20 million dollars.
Although Giles Clarke, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman was keen to stress on Tuesday the collective nature of the deal, he seemed only too eager to welcome Stanford and express admiration for his business acumen.
Plans were then announced for Stanford's involvement in English Twenty20 matches.
The Stanford series in Antigua was a way for the ECB to forestall the exit of leading players for lucrative engagements in the Indian Premier League Twenty20 competition, whose dates clash with the start of the English season.
But from England's point of view it soon became an embarrassment.
Stanford was slammed for bouncing the wife of one of the England players on his knee during the Antigua matches and by the end of 2008 he was reviewing his cricket commitments.
England were humiliated in the final by Stanford's Caribbean All Stars and eventually acknowledged India's position as world cricket's dominant financial power by agreeing to allow their players, albeit briefly, to play in the IPL.
But for the West Indian players who received one million dollars each for their efforts, the match had appeared life changing in more ways than one.
They demonstrated a professionalism rarely associated with West Indies sides during their decline from their 1970s and 1980s pre-eminence and there are signs that work ethic has remained with the official side.
"We're doing it, the results are here tonight. We are back, we're going to take the world again," Stanford, said after the final.
While the ECB will be able to absorb the impact of any financial loss in its Stanford dealings, it is a different story for the WICB.
According to their website, Stanford promised to invest 100 million dollars from 2008 through 2011, 20 percent of it directly to grass roots schemes, plus an additional monthly backing of 15,000 dollars to each of the 20 Caribbean nations in the Twenty20 set-up.
Clarke, for all the flak that came his way, recently saw his only rival in the upcoming ECB chairman election withdraw and so seemed certain to be re-elected.
But as the England team bowled out for just 51 in the first Test of their ongoing series in the West Indies could tell him, "the glorious uncertainty of cricket" remains.
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Allen Stanford (left) England cricketer Kevin Pietersen before a match against Middlesex in St John's in October 2008. When Stanford unveiled his 20 million dollar winner takes all Twenty20 match between his Caribbean Superstars and England, many in the cricket world were stunned and appalled.
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