 | |
| Countries |  Antigua and Barbuda |
|---|---|
| Format | Twenty20 |
| Tournament format | One off match with warm ups |
| Number of teams | 4 |
The Stanford Super Series was a series of Twenty20 cricket matches in 2008, sponsored by Allen Stanford. The main game of the Series matched the English national cricket team against an all-star team from the Caribbean, called the Stanford Superstars.
The prize money awarded in the tournament was winner-take-all; the players for the winning team in the yearly game took home $20 million prize money, and the losing players did not earn anything. The domestic West Indies and England Twenty20 champions competed for the Champions Cup, as well as playing in a series of other exhibition matches with the Superstars and England. The tournament collapsed following the arrest (and subsequent conviction) of Allen Stanford for an $8 billion fraud, part of which funded the prize money for the Super Series.[1]
The tournament was played between 25 October – 1 November consisting of 5 warm-up matches and a grand finale. This final match was played between the Stanford Superstars and England. Before it began, the tournament was threatened with cancellation due to a row between Digicel, the West Indies Cricket Board's (WICB) main sponsor, and Stanford. Digicel argued that it should get sponsorship rights because it is WICB's sponsorship rights holder and that the tournament was officially sanctioned by the WICB. All 2008 Super Series matches took place at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua, and started at 5:30 pm local time (9:30 pm in the United Kingdom). All games were aired on Sky Sports in the UK.[2]
- ^ Anna Driver and Simon Evans (17 February 2009). "Stanford, aides failed to appear for testimony: U.S". Reuters. Retrieved 10 January 2015.
- ^ "Stanford Super Series Schedule – dates, venues, times and coverage". Archived from the original on 6 October 2008. Retrieved 27 October 2008.