Sport

Test for 20/20 vision

CRICKET:  ALLEN STANFORD has insisted he is not opposed to Test cricket and believes it needs to exist alongside Twenty20

Tue Oct 28 2008 - 00:00

CRICKET: ALLEN STANFORD has insisted he is not opposed to Test cricket and believes it needs to exist alongside Twenty20. After months of talk, the Stanford Super Series began on Saturday in Antigua with the Stanford Superstars claiming victory over Trinidad and Tobago in the curtain raiser.

England launched their programme with a narrow victory over Middlesex on Sunday - and play Trinidad and Tobago today - while the series is set to culminate in a much-hyped €16-million winner-takes-all match against the Stanford Superstars.

With the Indian Premier League having been launched earlier this year and the current series in the Caribbean, Twenty20's profile has grown exponentially in relation to Test cricket, to the chagrin of many who feel the latter is the pure form of the game.

When asked if the prominence of Twenty20 could pose a threat to Tests in the future, Stanford said: "I think just the opposite. I think you have to look at it from two perspectives: the foundation of the sport is Test cricket, the future of the game is Twenty20.

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"Both can coexist. Maybe one is more for the purist, maybe one is more for the younger, the 'want to see it now, be entertained now' crowd. Like Lord's is the foundation of cricket, it's the beginning, it's the holy grail of cricket.

"You can no more do away with that which is Test cricket and replace it with Twenty20 than you can say that Test cricket is the only thing out there. (That) would be foolish because professional sport, unfortunately, is about money and Twenty20 is what is going to drive, commercially, the dollars in the door."

The Texas billionaire has bankrolled the tournament in the West Indies and has been keen to get involved in the English game.

After extensive talks with the England and Wales Cricket Board earlier this year, an agreement was reached for England to take part. However, Stanford denied he had been in control of the negotiations with ECB chief executive David Collier and chairman Giles Clarke: "I think that is a ludicrous statement. They are not dancing to my tune, I respect them both greatly."