Stanford scatters his dollars

Ahead of the Stanford 20/20, which gets underway this weekend, its billionaire benefactor and organise, Allen Stanford, is piling another $3.5m into promoting the tournament...in one town.

Fort Collins is the lucky recipient of "ads, parties, promotions, billboards, giveaways, clinics" in order to promote the game to an "audience more concerned with the Super Bowl and college basketball".

“I wanted to see if we could get a city in the U.S. that knew nothing about the sport to be cricket crazy,” Stanford said in a telephone interview.

“It’s so dadgum entertaining, it will be different from anything you’ve ever seen.” 20/20 Cricket, Stanford points out, is a faster paced version of the sport that can take two to three days to play in its original form.

Colorodaoan.com has more - as does the glitzily named yougottaseethis2020.com