The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is discovering a harsh lesson, one that Sir Alex Ferguson learnt a few years ago when he became involved with a racehorse called Rock Of Gibraltar - that the billionaires' playground is a rough place to play.

Caught between the biggest of rocks and the hardest of places, between Allen Stanford and Denis O'Brien - men worth, according to Forbes magazine recently, $2.2billion (about £1.2billion) each - the WICB is suddenly looking vulnerable indeed.

It is quite some achievement to court not one but two billionaires, persuade them to dip into their cavernous pockets and then annoy them both to the extent that one (O'Brien through Digicel) has gone to court while the other (Stanford), it has been rumoured, is prepared to do so.

Yesterday was a victory for O'Brien and although Stanford was not party to the arbitration between Digicel and the WICB, it was a defeat of sorts for him. Since billionaires do not take these things lightly, the saga, which has had as many subplots and only a little less viciousness than an Elmore Leonard thriller, has some way to run.

No sympathy needs be felt for the WICB, though, since this is a predicament entirely of its own making. Not content with pocketing millions from Digicel - a deal worth $20million had just been extended to 2012 - it thought it could do the same with Stanford, who has already pumped, according to his own estimates, $80million into West Indies cricket.

Since the WICB officially sanctioned the match and because part of the WICB's deal with Stanford was to make all its contracted players available, the WICB essentially sold the same set of rights twice. On top of that, Stanford previously had a commercial arrangement with Cable & Wireless, Digicel's telecommunications rival, yet the WICB still could not understand why Digicel, which was always confident of the strength of its legal argument, came over all litigious.

Surely a resignation or two from those who purport to lead West Indies cricket will follow. When Stanford arrived at Lord's in midsummer in his gold-plated helicopter and dumped $20million in cash on the table, he did so in the presence of Dr Julian Hunte, the president of the WICB, who looked like the cat who had got the proverbial cream. It was, though, the ECB for whom Stanford saved his compliments, saying it was the best-led organisation in cricket.

He did not give his opinion of the WICB, but as the summer progressed his doubts, if they did not already exist, must have begun to grow. Embroiled in an argument over the financial wherewithal of the refurbishment of the president's office in St Lucia, the chief executive of the WICB, Donald Peters, was sent on gardening leave. Tony Deyal, a corporate secretary, was also dismissed in the furore and is in dispute over the terms of his departure. Yesterday, in the London International Court of Arbitration, he gave evidence against his former employer. Surely, after yesterday's outcome, the positions of Hunte and Peters are untenable.

Those who have followed the fortunes of West Indies over the years will not be surprised at the WICB's difficulties. It does not always follow that fortunes on the field mirror competence or otherwise off it, but it surely does in the Caribbean. The inexorable decline of a once great team has been accompanied by the most inept administration in cricket. The WICB has given the clearest impression of an organisation that does not know what it is doing.

Unlike football, the involvement of billionaires is relatively new. From Rahul Dravid, publicly excoriated last year by Vijay Mallya, India's richest man, over the performance of Bangalore Royal Challengers in the Indian Premier League, to the hapless if well-meaning WICB, cricket is discovering that it is an involvement that comes with risks attached.

Money men who must find a quick way to reach compromise

Allen Stanford

Born: March 24, 1950, in Texas.

Fortune: Inherited real estate business. Worth $2.2billion, making him 205th wealthiest person in US.

Family: Separated, six children.

Career: Worked in real estate in Texas, inheriting his father's business in 1993. Opened offices in South America and Caribbean and expanded into wealth management. Sponsors a variety of sports events. First Stanford 20/20 cricket tournament in 2006. In June 2008, signed deal with ECB for a series of Twenty20 matches and a $20million winner-takes-all contest between England and a West Indies XI.

Lives: Antigua.

Denis O'Brien

Born: April 19, 1958, in Co Cork.

Fortune: Self-made from telecoms. Worth $2.2billion, making him the fourth wealthiest person in Ireland.

Family: Married, four children.

Career: History and politics degree from University College Dublin and MBA in corporate finance from Boston College. Sold equine pharmaceuticals in US before getting job with Tony Ryan, co-founder of Ryanair. Started home-shopping satellite channel, then in 1995 branched into telecoms, winning a licence to operate mobile phones. Set up Digicel in 2001, operating in the Caribbean and South America.

Lives: Malta.