Bat and ball / Frank Gregan / 23 February 2009 /

Frank Gregan wonders whether the Stanford debacle hasn't inadvertently helped to conceal the fact that the England cricket team isn't that good. And those jumping on the bandwagon in pointing their finger at Giles Clarke should remember that the ECB wasn't alone in being conned by Stanford...

English cricket is said to be "in a state of embarrassment" because of its "guilt by association" tag with the Texan tycoon Sir Allen Stanford who has been charged with an $8 billion investment fraud. The old adage of 'if something is too good to be true then it probably is' springs to mind and accusations are being made that the men from St Johns Wood were naïve, greedy and just plain stupid to get involved with a guy who thinks pretension is something you get before being nervous!

In hindsight it is easy to jump on the bandwagon and say that our cricketing authorities should have sensed that the man's empire was built on pillars of salt and sand and disassociated themselves from him. The reality is that like any good conman he pitched at exactly the right time and provided the ECB with a wonderful alternative to a player's bloody revolution over their non-participation in the big money IPL.

If the intention of the ECB was to raise the profile of cricket and to placate their players through their association with the Texan then it has to be said that it has been an unqualified success, the air time the game is receiving currently in the States is unprecedented.

At this very moment the sight of the Stanford helicopter swooping down to land at Lords is being played on a constant 24 hour loop on US News Channels, wonderful exposure for the game of leather upon willow in the land of the pitcher, quarterback and hockey masks.

Granted, not quite what Clarke and his cronies had in mind when they signed up with Stanford but they always say there's no such thing as bad publicity!

The condemnation of the powers that be at the ECB has been vociferous and there is plenty to be annoyed about at present, not least that once again England have managed to turn a seemingly unassailable position into a draw during the last test. The Stanford situation has drawn attention away from what most England supporters are concerned about, their team's dreadful run of form.

The ECB are getting stick over Stanford simply because it is one of those situations when everybody wants someone to be accountable. Truth of the matter is the man has deceived millions of people ranging from the two major US political parties to the man on the street looking for a stellar return on his investment fund.

Sadly for the ECB he is what the Americans call a "jock sniffer" someone who likes to associate himself with high profile sports and its participants. The ECB bit hook line and sinker but who wouldn't have? They got mugged, it happens, move on.

I'm thinking of investing in a new wealth management fund of my own courtesy of this tour to the West Indies. Having recommended backing the West Indies to win the first test at [3.7] and the series at [4.4], I followed that up by recommending that England should be laid once they went odds on in the third test. [1.82] was the average price that I laid at and I confess that at one stage it looked like my fellow countrymen were going to produce a shock and actually win a test match but normal service was resumed.

The West Indies are now [1.85] to lay to win the series and there is a temptation to turn the screen green but a much more sensible alternative is to back a 1-1 draw in the correct score market at [4.0]. That provides an optimum return and can only be thwarted should England win back to back test matches. There is always that chance along with hell freezing over and new car sales rising by 50% this month!

So what does the future hold for Giles Clarke? It looks as is his position will be ratified but if he has to relinquish his post it should be due to the dire state that English cricket now finds itself in, not because he was duped by Sir Allen Stanford. Sentences containing the words Giles Clarke and sympathy are rare but in his dealings with the Texan the ECB Chairman has been just another victim.

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