Allen Stanford strikes!!!

The deal has been signed.The next 5 years will see England and West Indian players play 20/20 matches. The format is very interesting.The winners take all the cash i.e US$20 million. So if England wins the match each of the XI players earn US$1 million , the rest of team share another 1 million , the management gets 1 million and the rest is shared by their respective cricket boards. This will see players earning much more than the IPL players except a few top players.The deal for 5 years is worth US$100 million making it one of the biggest, the cricketing world has ever witnessed.

The Story behind Allen Stanford

Allen Stanford is a Texas based billionaire financier and he has been into sports from early days.He has been sponsoring lot of tournaments in golf , sailing,cricket,tennis. His involvement in cricket has been Stanford 20/20cricket tournament. He built a stadium for that in Antigua and the tournament was first held in 2006 July. This tournament has the Caribbean nations fighting out for the trophy.
After the 20/20 World Cup there were offers up to US$20 million to from him to team India to play a 20/20 match(Initially he said 5 million and finally he was ready to shell out a whooping 20 million). This was not considered by India. Recently he has offered US$100 million to England Players to play 5 games. If this takes place this will go down as the maximum money earned by players bettering IPL. This would be a great chance for the West Indian players also. Time will tell us if this man is going to make history!!!!

The IPL Saga

The story of IPL has so far been a movie.....little bit of everything....action comedy drama and what not......we have had heated dialogues and as in movies the hero gets beaten first, but finally as always the villain got punished!!!The umpiring has been to say the least very poor.....we had over being called after only 5 balls were bowled...the richest have had a bitter time and now only are they finding their feet.....
Though initially IPL had brought about a few hiccups for people like Ekta kapoor now things are back to old times and the soaps have gained back their trps......On the brighter side we have had some brilliant cricket from both the legends as well as the rookies.....The purist have found this cup of tea a little too hot for their comfort, they are slowly coming into the party......
to mention a few names....we had a glamorous beginning with a whirlwind knock from Brendon Mccullum....Hussey, Symonds and Gilly soon joined the Australian bandwagon as the next centurions.....With the aussies making their way, some of the teams have stuttered....youngsters like Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been sensational....Sehwag has been murdering bowling attacks - the job he does the best!!!!
we also had great bowling from the Masters McGrath and Pollock and also others like Sohail Tanvir and Irfan Pathan....not to forget the ever shining Shane Warne...he has led his relatively unknown side with great success...not to forget his bowling, the old charm and guile was visible all through out....
Finally the fans....there has been "Preity" good support for all the teams... Let us believe we get to some more quality cricket and hope for new heroes to rise....