Allen Stanford charged over $8bn fraud

In recent months the English cricket authorities seem to have been planning the future of the game around the largesse of Sir Allen Stanford.

This always looked an undignified policy and with this news from the BBC:

Texan billionaire and cricket promoter Sir Allen Stanford has been charged over a $8bn (£5.6bn) investment fraud, US financial regulators say.

The Securities and Exchange Commission said the financier had orchestrated "a fraudulent, multi-billion dollar investment scheme".

The SEC said the fraud was "based on false promises and fabricated historical return data".

it looks downright stupid - the cricketing equivalent of HBOS's investment policies.

Respect to Tim Worstall who has been forecasting just this development for a couple of days. I just hope the West Indies' prize cheques didn't bounce.