£10m Stanford match is saved by peace deal

England's £10million cricket match in

The sport's richest ever contest, between Kevin Pietersen's team and the Stanford Superstars, was thrown into doubt on Tuesday when the High Court in London ruled the West Indies Cricket Board could no longer sanction the game because of a commercial dispute involving a sponsor.

That meant all the leading Caribbean players, like Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan, would be forced to pull out — leaving the winner-takes-all Twenty20 match virtually dead and buried.

With £10m at stake — including £500,000 a man for Pietersen and Co if they manage to win on
1 November — negotiations began immediately to save the day. It is understood a compromise was agreed late last night and will be formally announced later today.

At the heart of the dispute was the WICB's decision to hand the rights of the match to Sir Allen Stanford, thereby freezing out their
long-term sponsor, Digicel.

Not surprisingly, the telecommunications giant was furious and launched a case to have its branding on show when the game is played at Stanford's private ground close to Antigua's international airport.

Digicel demanded to have its company logo on the Superstars shirts as it had argued that the side were a West Indies international outfit in all but name.