THE easy rebuilding of Australia’s ego continues next month. After the pointless ICC Super Series, Australia’s first Test since losing the Ashes will be against a West Indies team on its knees. West Indies have lost 13 Test series since 2000 and nine of their past 12 Tests. They have won only two of their past 18 one-day matches since their astonishing run-chase in the ICC Champions Trophy final last summer. The Caribbean is crying out for a miracle.

A Texan financier, who has even got President Bush interested in the game, could be the unlikely saviour. Allen Stanford has announced that he is to pump $28 million (about £16 million) into a Caribbean Twenty20 competition next August. The winning team will receive $1 million.

Backed by 14 legends, including Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Vivian Richards and Clive Lloyd, the competition will feature 17 teams, with the Windward and Leeward Islands split into their constituent parts. Each team will get $100,000 up front, plus monthly stipends, for coaching and facilities. Stanford is also hiring two nutritionists and four professional trainers. “I want to enable West Indies to compete on the same footing as England and Australia,” Stanford told The Times . A single elimination format will give minnows a chance. “We’d love a smaller nation to kick a larger one’s behind,” he said. “Like Trinidad losing to Dominica.” Afterwards, a “Super Star” team will be selected to play two Twenty20 internationals, with $5 million at stake.

Such investment has led to comparisons being drawn between Stanford and Kerry Packer. “I’m nowhere near him,” Stanford said. But when he gets talking about “celebrities, fireworks and bands before the game”, the word “circus” inevitably comes to mind.

Stanford has been investing in the Caribbean for 20 years. “I first saw cricket in the early 1990s when some of the greats were still in the game,” he said. “When I got interested West Indies were dominant but they have declined at an alarming pace. If these god-given athletes are not attracted into the West Indies game, they’ll be lost to the United States and basketball. The purpose of this competition is to find talent. We need a new Viv Richards.”

It is odd that the Caribbean’s benefactor speaks with a Texan drawl, but the US is slowly waking up to cricket. Kentucky Fried Chicken is the new sponsor of the 50-over cup in the West Indies and Stanford says even George W. Bush is aware of the game. “I was invited to Bush’s ranch and when I said I had a home in Antigua, he asked me to explain cricket to him because it looks a bit like polo and baseball combined . . . only without the horses. We discussed it for half an hour.”

The US will never be ready for Test cricket, but Stanford believes that the shortest form of the game will hold Americans’ attention. “Twenty20 is high-paced, like the Super Bowl or a heavyweight prize fight. It will get a lot of television revenue.”

That, of course, is the main motivation and why Stanford is not investing in the first-class game. He promises the games will be free to air in the Caribbean, but hopes to recoup his investment through selling the rights worldwide. When he talks with excitement about wanting India and England to play his Super Star team, it must be with awareness of the audience in those countries.

The success of the competition will determine its future. “I’m committed to it this year, then we’ll see what we have accomplished,” he said. “Did everyone buy into it? Was there excitement? If so, the project will have life.”

There is no denying Stanford’s passion for the West Indies. “There’s a kindred spirit between West Indians and Texans,” he said. “Both are strong-willed and fun-loving.” But while he talks a good game, his knowledge seems sketchy. He said that he followed the Ashes — “Absolutely, it was like a daily event for me” — but when asked which players he admired, he prevaricated, saying “I don’t want to single out anyone in particular.” Andrew Flintoff must be disappointed.

ISLANDS IN THE SUN

The countries invited to take part in the Stanford Twenty20 are: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Maarten, the British Virgin Islands, St Vincent and Trinidad and Tobago