Performance of the Day

  I know that many cricket fans have their doubts about Twenty20 cricket. I'm guessing, but I expect many cricket fans have their doubts about Texan billionaires too. So the Trumpet is not without trepidation in naming Twenty20-loving, Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford (right, yes he's the one in the middle) for the PotD.

Why? Amidst all the hand-wringing after the abject performance of the current West Indian team, Cricinfo reports that Sir Allen is doing something about it. In founding a professional Twenty20 team for Antigua, he says, "In addition to creating more competitive play in the Stanford 20/20 tournament, the purpose for the Stanford 20/20 Professional Team in Antigua and the league overall is to provide the West Indies with a pool of players that they can tap into when making selections for their National and West Indies Cricket Teams... Their job will be to play cricket and they will make a living doing so. The West Indies cannot help but benefit from the calibre of cricket that we are going to see come out of this team and the league when it all comes together. We are very excited about what this means for West Indies cricket."

Fine words, but can we trust him?

“As the two [WICB and the players) continue to squabble, Sir Allen Stanford, a Texan for heaven’s sake, even if West Indian by adoption, has stepped into the breach. He has thrown some of his considerable wealth, a little matter of US$35 million or so, into the first 20/20 tournament in the Caribbean and, more to the point, won over the public and the players with a simple public and player relations strategy that the West Indies Board seemingly has never considered necessary. Even before the 20/20 Tournament, Stanford had established this Hall of Fame for West Indies cricketers, the first and only of its kind in the region. Although it is an easily implemented and widely appreciated gesture, the idea never occurred to the Board and it took Allen Stanford to show the way.”

That quote is not from some PR agency, but Tony Cozier, a man whose love for Carribean cricket is not in doubt and whose judgement is good enough for the Trumpet.

[The Tooting Trumpet]