Stanford spectre to force extra T20s

England's cricketers could be required to play an extra pair of Twenty20 matches against West Indies at the end of the current season, as the ECB seeks to fulfill a contractual obligation to their host broadcasters, Sky, three years after the collapse of the Stanford Super Series.

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, the ECB is under pressure to keep its side of a £260million broadcast deal with Sky, signed in 2008, which was originally intended to include a Stanford Super Series every November, as well as an IPL-style Twenty20 tournament during each English summer.

However, within four months of the original and much-criticised Stanford event taking place in Antigua in November 2008, Allen Stanford was arrested and accused of being the mastermind of a £7billion fraud. He is currently in jail where he has been treated for drug addiction, and is due to stand trial in New York on September 12.

The circumstances of the deal have left an indelible stain on the reputations of Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, and David Collier, the chief executive. Now it seems they face further awkward questions on the subject, not least from England's cricketers, who were outspoken in their criticism of an over-filled itinerary earlier this year, and are unlikely to welcome any addition to their workload.

However, with county cricket under financial pressure, the prospect of repaying a portion of that £260million sum is unpalatable to the ECB hierarchy. Therefore, the proposal at present is for West Indies to stop over in the UK en route to Bangladesh in September, with two Twenty20 matches likely to take place in London (for logistic reasons) in the week beginning September 19.

The English season is due to have ended two days earlier at Lord's on September 17, with the final of the county 40-over competition, while England's final match of the season is set to take place against India in Cardiff on September 16. "The discussions are ongoing and relate to the Sky deal and the commitments the ECB made when they signed the contract in 2008," a source told The Daily Telegraph.

Under the current ICC regulations, countries are only permitted to play a maximum of three Twenty20 games in any home season. Therefore, should the matches take place, they might not be afforded full international status. The possibility is that they will be sold to the England management as opportunities to further Stuart Broad's captaincy experience ahead of next year's World Twenty20, and to test out fringe players from the academy and county circuit.

The senior England players are unlikely to welcome any interruption to their downtime, given that the one-day tour of India gets underway barely a month later in October. Although the precise dates have yet to be announced, the venues, as confirmed by the BCCI, will be Kolkata, Mumbai, Mohali, Hyderabad and Delhi, with Kolkata also hosting a one-off Twenty20 match.