LONDON (AP):

ENGLAND CRICKETERS and officials are close to finalising a deal with Texan billionaire Allen Stanford over his proposal for lucrative Twenty20 matches.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has been meeting with Stanford for more than a month. Stanford, who runs his own Twenty20 tournament in the Caribbean, has offered the ECB a 10 million pound (US$19.7 million) winner-take-all match between England and an all-star team from the West Indies, to be played every November for the next five years. He would fund the competition and pay the travelling expenses.

The ECB said on Monday it was glad players and officials were "aligned concerning the potential benefits to cricket and proposed reward structures of our negotiations with Sir Allen Stanford''.