England signed the agreement to play five match winner-takes-all twenty20 match series. This series will be played at Caribbean. The agreement was made with a businessman Sir Allen Stanford. The first match of this series will be played on 1st of November between England and Stanford’s Super Stars at Sir Allen’s Cricket ground located at Antigua.
Each player of winning team will get £500,000. The amount of £1m will be divided among other supporting personals and coaches. £3.5m will be delivered to the cricket boards of England and West Indies. It is considered as the richest team prize of history for any single match. This deal is made for the coming next five years and these matches will be played each year in November.
Peter Moores – England team coach – said that the players are very happy with this deal. He commented that there is no clash of views among the players and denied all such news.
Coach also said that the mental strength of the players will be tested for the reason money is greatly involved in this match series. Besides this, he also said that there is no any chance or idea of replacing the established players with new energetic players. He said;
"It will be a different sort of pressure for all the players. It is such an exciting time to be involved in the game"
He further said;
"In modern sport you realize that players get paid differently and you get paid for what you earn the right to. It's quite a ruthless business."
Sir Allen Stanford is 58 year old billionaire born at Texas. He arrived at Lords in a private helicopter and landed at nursery ground. The great players of the past were also present in the launching ceremony like Sir Ian Botham, Sir Viv Richards, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes, Curtly Ambrose and Nasser Hussein. Interesting thing about this event was the display of real £10m in cash form; this was to show practically that the money is really involved in this game.
