Viv Richards

Sir Viv Richards is sitting in the main stand at the Stanford Cricket Ground and has just seen the side he selected make an unconvincing start to a week that could end with them all becoming dollar millionaires.

But even though his faith in the West Indies cricket has been battered by a decade of defeat and decline, the pride is as strong as ever. “Don’t just come here and think you’re going to roll us over,” he said.

Richards is on Sir Allen Stanford’s payroll and that has to be remembered when he says that this week could start the process of restoring the Caribbean as a force in world cricket.

It is a sign of the times that, with Test-match crowds embarrassingly low, Richards has swallowed the cold, hard reality that Twenty20 may be the only way to save a game that was once such an imperative part of the West Indian culture.

“This whole Twenty20 thing, even though a lot of folks say it’s not the traditional stuff, it’s still a game of cricket,” Richards said. “It keeps the game going. There had been talk about the attendances falling where Test matches are concerned, so Twenty20 can help keep Test cricket alive. It can give it breathing space.”

The crowd at Saturday night’s opening match, when Stanford’s team beat Trinidad by 29 runs, was young and radically different from the noisy and intimidating male preserve that was traditionally a day out at a Caribbean Test match. It is this reaching out to the next generation, and turning them away from American sports, that gives Richards hope.

“The family factor is, for me, the highlight,” he said. “There’s a new clientele that Twenty20 has reached. Some folks who would have grown up in the past won’t be interested in Twenty20, but in the end you’ve got to give people what they want and this is it. The kids are coming in and that’s seriously healthy.”

So Twenty20 is perhaps the only way the West Indies can be world champions again? “We’ve been the best before, so why not?” Richards said. “Because of this, people are again talking about the West Indies cricket and if these guys can win the $20 million it will send a big message — it will be a signal. People will say ‘wow’, and it will create excitement here.

“We’ve won two World Cups and were unbeaten for a long time in Test cricket. This is another avenue for us to try and dominate and dictate in world cricket.”

But disillusionment with the present generation remains, even within the chief selector of the Stanford Superstars. “Some guys have no pride when it comes to performances and for a while they can say, ‘We’re back’, but it has to go beyond just one match,” said Richards.

There is no mistaking the fact that this is Richards country. It is inescapable as soon as you step off the plane and file through immigration, past a poster of the great man looking down.

Stanford immediately realised that to have credibility he would need Richards’ approval. He is the leading member of Stanford’s team of ‘Legends’, a collection of the great and good of the West Indies cricket that Stanford uses as his cricket sounding board.