I am no Kerry Packer

Allen Stanford, the Texas billionaire, who has made Antigua his home over the past 25 years, has been the pioneer in taking T20 cricket to the Caribbean Islands. His initial foray into the game was greeted with scepticism but the success of his first edition of the Stanford T20 has changed all that. Now, West Indian legends, including Viv Richards and Michael Holding, endorse the fact that kick-starting T20, the Stanford way, is the step forward. Nihal Koshie spoke to him recently in South Africa. Excerpts:

Q. So what’s your deal with Twenty20 cricket? And why are you pumping in so much money?
Allen Stanford: Well, people think I am another Kerry Packer but my businesses are very different. I love the Caribbean and have lived for 25 years there.

When you talk about cricket in the Caribbean, it ties together all the Islands as one. But we are at the bottom now. When we are at the top, we all rise up with all the pride and when you sink you don’t feel too good about yourself and about the region.

In the first year, that was over two years ago, I put in about $30 million. Now I have a budget of over $100 million for the next three years. What I am doing here is to give back something to the region I love.

Q. You have legends like Sir Viv Richards, Michael Holding, and Courtney Walsh on the board. How did you convince these old school fellows or purists to jump on to the T20 bandwagon?
AS: I do have business interests here, but more importantly I also stay in the Virgin Islands in the US and I also have property in Antigua. So my first foray into this was with Mickey (Michael Holding) about three years ago. Mickey and I were talking and he wasn’t at that time a proponent of T20 cricket, but he told me that it was the quickest thing to do in terms of investment to make an impact, to get the young kids into the sports again.

 He said ‘Let’s talk to some of the great players of the game who are friends of mine’. There are 14 of them now and a lot of them were purists of the game. They weren’t big fans of Twenty20. But after looking at where West Indies cricket is and realising that what we have to do something quick and that nobody was going to come down the road and help West Indies cricket, these legends have become fans and supporters.

Q. What’s your take on Twenty20 and how do you see it benefiting West Indian cricket?
AS: I am just for total Twenty20. I think it is the greatest team sport in the world and I think in three years we are going to have the best T20 teams. We will be world-beaters in 50 overs in two years’ time and a couple of years from then we will be at the top of Test cricket too.

What we now want is an opportunity to go on and create something that is going to take this young crop of talent and ensure that they stay in West Indies and play cricket. At the moment they are going elsewhere; to basketball, soccer and other sports. We have to get them back to cricket. We are losing those kids.

We lost five or six great athletes to American basketball in a year and then we have lost another five or six to soccer. We have got some of the most talented athletes in the West Indies.

The problem, as I see, is that we are stuck in the 1950s and early 60s. Most of the islands are running full-time slash part-time cricket. You have to work as a full-time professional banker and then go and play cricket on the side. You just can’t do that. Sport is a full-time commitment.

Young kids in the Caribbean must see cricket as a profession. When you have multi-million dollar athletes two hours away by airplane in the North American market and you are six foot six and you can jump 35 inches vertical, you might say, ‘hey I can play basketball and make 10 million dollars a year.’

Q. How is Stanford Twenty20 changing the nature cricket in West Indies?
AS: For a traditional Test match in the Caribbean, 90 per cent of the spectators are male viewers and 10 per cent women and kids. In the Stanford Twenty20 it is about 60 per cent women and kids and 40 per cent male. That is a huge change; it means there is an entertainment factor. We have women coming to our games even though they didn’t really understand the game.

Plus there is no place in the world where you have fierce and healthy rivalries between islands. The atmosphere is great; you have to be there to believe it. You don’t have to create the rivalry in the West Indies. If we can match entertainment with athleticism then we have got something no one else has.

Q. Frankly do you think T20 cricket will help West Indies regain its lost glory in the long run? Is it a step in the right direction?
AS: It is the only format that makes sense. The Twenty20 game lasts only three hours just like a soccer game, baseball or American football. It is short and you can watch it in half a day, you can watch it in the evening after work. Kids have to look at it and say I have to relate to this. So that is something that appeals to the youngsters and once they get into Twenty20 you move them to the next level, say 50 overs and then you get into traditional Test match cricket.

T20 cricketer needs to make that transition to Test match cricket but you have to have something to get them interested in and got to have something that makes money. We are setting up pro-teams professional teams that don’t exist in the West Indies. This time next year we will have 20 professional teams. We will have medium to take the game forward. Young cricketers will say we can play professional cricket and make a living here. Right now we have to jump-start something.

Q. So are you taking the game to the grass root level?
AS: Yes, that is the plan. But we begin with professional teams and then we will surely be in schools.

Q. Have you ever played sport at a professional level?
AS: I played a lot of college football in the States, but I have always been a sports fan. I’ve been a fan of West Indian cricket and I am really passionate about what the game does to the Caribbean Islands; it brings people together and makes everyone happy.

Let me tell you I have no hidden agenda and I am in this for the long run.