Twenty20 Cup Rescheduling Angers England

England are fighting an increasingly lonely battle to protect the status of Test cricket against the onward march of Twenty20 after Australia and South Africa bowed yesterday to Indian pressure to reschedule the inaugural Twenty20 Champions League from September to December.

The Club Champions League will now take place on December 3-10 in India, sandwiched between the one-day and Test series featuring England and India, with the Champions League final scheduled for the night before the start of the first Test in Ahmedabad. It brings the appalling possibility that Mahendra Singh Dhoni could finish a floodlit Champions League final for Chennai Super Kings at 11pm and still be expected to be in Ahmedabad for a Test match by 10am the following day.

If Dhoni pulled out of either match, the prospects of litigation between TV rights holders would be considerable.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is privately aghast, believing the future of the international game is under threat because of desperation to attract Indian money, and would refuse any attempt to push back the first Test. The second Test in Mumbai follows only four days later, leaving England just enough time to return home by Christmas Eve.

An ECB spokesman said: "Test cricket must have primacy as far as the ECB is concerned and nothing has changed. India have long been aware of our views."

Meanwhile Stanford Superstars - the team who will take on England for a £10m Twenty20 purse - today named their squad for the contest on November 1.

Stanford Superstars

Baker (Montserrat), Benn (Barbados), Bravo, Emrit, Mohammed, Pollard (all Trinidad and Tobago), Chanderpaul, Sarwan, Cush (all Guyana), Fletcher (Grenada), Gayle, Marshall, Powell, Taylor (all Jamaica), Hampson, Joseph (Antigua and Barbuda), James (St Vincent)