West Indies To Step In To Tour England
The England and West Indies cricket boards are set to agree on a two-Test series for next May to fill a gap in both teams’ schedules.
Sri Lanka were due to tour England next May but a scheduling conflict with the lucrative Indian Premier League is likely to mean that the country would not be able to field a number of their top players.
As a second-string Sri Lanka would be unacceptable to broadcasters, sponsors and audiences alike, the West Indies are now likely to step into the breach to play a two-Test series against England.
The move is just one of a number of deals currently being done between the England and Wales Cricket Board and its West Indian counterpart with both organisations involved in the deal for the Stanford Twenty20 series which will see a series of £10m matches played each year for the next five years.
The three highest-profile players in the West Indies – Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo – are all contracted by the IPL but they should be amenable to missing a few weeks’ appearance money in India, given that the Stanford Series has the potential to earn them even greater sums.
The West Indies has also been named as the host for a World Twenty20 competition in the spring of 2010. The scheduled dates – 23rd April 23 to 9th May – will probably force the IPL to shift itself to earlier in the year.
Even so, a February start date for the IPL is unlikely to help the leading English players find their way into the competition. England have a busy schedule in the early part of 2010, starting out with a tour of South Africa and continuing with four Tests in Pakistan.
