The unraveling of the Allen Stanford business empire may have come as a shock to the officials of the West Indies Cricket Board and the England and Wales Cricket Board but to most others it was an accident waiting to happen.

When an individual howsoever rich he maybe has ideas of having a tournament named after him by financing it with his companies funds, then there is always some room for doubts and in Stanford’s case right from the start when he came to Antigua and started to invest in that lovely tiny island there were many who refused to get swayed by his money power.

Michael Holding, the great West Indian fast bowler and a super commentator was one of those who realized very early that there was more to Stanford than meets the eye.

He resigned from the Board that Stanford had set up to advise him on how to get mileage out of cricket and how his money could be best utilized for developing the sport in the West Indies.

This board consisted of the greatest of West Indian cricketers including Sir Everton Weekes, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Viv Richards, Clive Lloyd, Wes Hall, Joel Garner to name a few and they were all on a handsome retainer per year.

Stanford did pump some much-needed funds in West Indies Cricket and that bought him the confidence of those who ran West Indies Cricket. So when he proposed a Twenty20 tournament between the winner of the team visiting the West Indies that year and West Indies to play against his All Stars team for a purse of $20 million, the West Indies Board gave it its backing despite that fact that it was a private promoter who was proposing it.

That proposal backed by the West Indies Cricket Board was on the ICC table for the past few years. It wasn’t getting through simply because the majority of the ICC Test member countries were wondering how they would get a share of the prize money offered since Stanford had made it clear that it was the winner takes all contest and if his own team the Stanford All Stars won, then they would keep the 20 million.

He was of course ready to pay an appearance fee to the boards whose teams would be playing in the contest.

The main argument of the majority of the member countries was that apart from Australia, England and India no other team would get invited for the event simply because they were not big box office draws. So the benefit if any would be of only those three countries.

Being a businessman Stanford knew that he would not be able to sell other teams to TV networks and so he would not be able to recoup the money he was putting in the contest.

Stanford even got the members of his advisory Board to meet with ICC officials in South Africa when the ICC Twenty20 World Cup was played but he wasn’t able to sway the doubters because of his stubbornness in refusing to play for anything less than the 20 million prize money. As he proudly proclaimed it is Twenty Twenty for Twenty.

When the Indian Premier League took off in a spectacular manner Stanford realized that he would be marginalized and so with the West Indies Cricket Board already in his pocket he approached the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The ECB were at loggerheads with the BCCI because it perceived the lessening of its importance and the growing clout of the BCCI.

It had already banned its players from playing in the IPL and it was planning an English Premier League of its own to rival the IPL. So without even thinking of the other member countries of the ICC who had steadfastly refused to be a party to the Stanford deal, the ECB went and signed a five-year deal with Stanford where its team would play against the Stanford All Stars.

Stanford by now had perhaps realized that the Twenty20 for Twenty was not going to work so although he did pledge 20 million, it was split up with three and half million each to the West Indies and England Cricket Boards and the remaining was the prize money to be won.

How he still managed to convince the media to call it Twenty20 for Twenty is a mystery because it was in reality only for 13 million and not 20.

The deception was hardly noticed by the world’s media and they still persisted in calling it a game for a prize of 20 million.

He flew down in a helicopter to the Lords Cricket Ground where the 20 million was displayed to the British media in the presence of former England and West Indian skippers as well as officials of both Boards.

He was lucky of course that he was not stopped as he helicoptered into Lord’s simply because Lord’s still has not got sky marshalls to ask for valid passes to enter the ground. There again nobody asked him why 20 million cash was being displayed when the game was for 13 million.

The ECB on a high after its deal with Stanford thumbed its nose at BCCI and even refused to be a founding member of the Champions League which could have earned it around 100 million a year. The Stanford deal was to get the ECB seventeen and half million over five years.

Who did the maths there to refuse the chance of being a founder member of the Champions League and earn a possible 500 million over the same period is anybody’s guess but no doubt, answers will be demanded by the media especially now that the Test is drawn and there is some time before the next Test starts.

It will be interesting to see the footwork of the ECB now.