Stanford 20/20 for 20 in doubt after board loses court case

	It appeared a win-win situation back in the summer when the match was announced at Lord's ... but now the West Indies are out of pocket and England are left waiting to see if there will be any game at all © Getty Images

The West Indies Cricket Board has lost its case with telecommunications company Digicel in London's High Court and has been forced to withdraw its sanction for the Stanford 20/20 for 20 match on November 1.

On the face of it, the decision makes it possible that the game could be off or, if it does proceed, that the Stanford Superstars side will be greatly weakened.

But it is believed there are behind-the-scenes negotiations taking place between Digicel and the Stanford organisers which, if successful, will free the way for the match to go ahead with a full-strength Stanford side. It may mean the team's shirts have Digicel branding and other commercial rights are assigned to the company.

The unquestioned losers are the WICB. Not only did the judgement go against it, it also faces having to pay costs running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will also forfeit the US$3.5 million it stood to gain from a share of the US$20 million booty put up by Allen Stanford.

Digicel insiders say the company was angry that it found out about the deal with Stanford through the media and that more would be made public when the full results of the arbitration were announced.

The WICB entered into a contract with Stanford to make all its players available for the event, but it cannot now do so unless an agreement is reached between Digicel and Stanford.

Digicel's case against the board was that if the Stanford match was officially recognised then, as official sponsor to the WICB, it had branding and other commercial rights associated with that deal. The court ruled that the WICB had to remove its sanction for the game as not doing so would put it in breach of contract with Digicel. As this was an arbitration, there is no recourse for the WICB to appeal.

What also has to be confirmed is the position of the England board and how appealing the match will be if it was to be against a second-string side, even if it made the possibility of winning the multi-million dollar jackpot more likely.

Cricinfo has also confirmed that Tony Deyal, who until July was the board's corporate secretary, gave evidence for Digicel against his former employers.