The biggest prize for a single sporting team event is threatened by a sponsorship rights row involving Caribbean mobile phone rivals Digicel and Cable and Wireless, the West Indies Cricket Board and one of America’s wealthiest financiers.

Sir Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire whose wealth management group that bears his name holds $50bn (£27bn) of assets, is putting up a $20m winner-takes-all prize for a Twenty20 cricket match between England and a West Indian XI called the Stanford Super Stars.