There were always going to be casualties thrown up by the world's first $20m cricket match and yesterday James Anderson became the most prominent, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain catches up with the man himself, Allen Stanford, for a chat. Stanford talks about his motivation behind the project, reaction to the negative press in the UK and assures that his relationship with the ECB is smooth.
The way we play cricket here is different and the reason a lot of people say West Indies is their second favourite team is because they're great athletes and have great fans - and we were losing all of that. So if I'm in your face, I apologise. I don't mean to be in anybody's face.
On the eve of the $20 million clash, Mike Selvey in the Guardian analyses England's final XI and feels it will be foolhardy to expect them to sail through the contest, against a very competent Superstars squad picked by Stanford's Legends.
In the same paper, Barney Ronay does a pitch report and describes the surface as a "stretch of cursed earth" that should look itself in the mirror.
Their [England's] indignation at the appalling conditions, the boorish behaviour of their patron, Sir Allen Stanford, their sheer anger at what amounts to nothing less than a sustained loss of dignity, is simply insupportable in the absence of the only reaction which would carry any serious meaning. That, of course, would be to walk away, to say that the whole grisly charade is simply not worth the money, writes James Lawton in the Independent.
While the Lottery Board doesn't publish the list if losers, the defeated players in the Stanford match "will be ridiculed by a public anxious to see a bunch of 'pampered stars' fall a notch or two", says Lasana Liburd in the Trinidad Express.
RSS Feed
