Moores sees positives for Windies

3 November 2008

Opening batsman Andre Fletcher enhanced his hopes of West Indies recognition

England coach Peter Moores hopes the inaugural Stanford Super Series will boost the fortunes of West Indies cricket.

The Stanford Superstars rose to the occasion on Saturday night in Antigua, defeating England by 10 wickets in the winner-takes-all $20million contest.

Each of the winning XI earned $1million while the remaining squad members shared the same sum, as did the coaching staff. Both the West Indies Cricket Board and the ECB also received $3.5million.

And Moores believes the WICB will use their share of the money, put up by Sir Allen Stanford who also bankrolls the Windies’ domestic Twenty20 competition, to strengthen the infrastructure of cricket in the Caribbean.

Moores also predicts that the current West Indies internationals among the Superstars side, and those who may emerge, will transfer their performance last week when they play for their county.

“Give Sir Allen Stanford his due, he has pumped a lot of money into West Indies cricket,” he said.

“And we saw a West Indies team there that was fit, disciplined, well trained and they played really good cricket.

“If that filters through to the official West Indies team, that is a really good thing for international cricket.”

Superstars assistant coach Roger Harper also stressed Stanford’s cash must not be an end in itself and should be used as the launchpad for a rejuvenation of the game in the West Indies.

"What I would seriously hope is that we learn from this as a team and as an organisation and that we build on this,” he told Sky Sports.

"It's got to be the start of something. The players have a big cheque to collect but we need to use this to move West Indies cricket to another level."