Texan tycoon charged over $9.2bn 'fraud' I Commentary: Mike Atherton I Profile: Allen Stanford I Clarke stands firm despite Stanford saga I Hunte confident Caribbean can survive scandal I

Giles Clarke, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), did not think it would come to this: sitting in a shabby room next to the gents' at the Antigua Recreation Ground, answering questions about the legality of Allen Stanford's affairs.

Quite a contrast from the first time that he introduced the Texan billionaire to an English audience at Lord's, where so many of England's finest have cut their teeth.

It was supposed to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship, a symbiotic one which would bring benefits to everyone: money to English cricket, through a quadrangular tournament funded by Stanford; money to England players, should they win the $20million purse that Stanford promised to put up for five years; and money to West Indies cricket and the grassroots of the game there. “A special relationship,” David Collier, the chief executive of the ECB, called it.

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Now, though, that relationship has turned sour, as so many thought it would. Now, Collier and Clarke will be forced to answer questions about their involvement with a man accused of fraud on a monumental scale.

Their judgment must be questioned on a number of counts. Just after the contract with Stanford had been signed, Collier hosted a dinner for cricket correspondents at a restaurant in London at which he was asked how far the ECB had checked Stanford's business empire. Collier's reply, that they had done so as far as they could, was unsatisfactory — as it now turns out, deeply unsatisfactory.

Yesterday, Nigel Hilliard, the chairman of Essex County Cricket Club and an ECB board member, suggested that those checks were based on Stanford's ability to pay, not the provenance of his money. “The ECB's viewpoint is that he is a sponsor of cricket and as such is no better or worse than any other sponsor of cricket. Due diligence was done on the basis, can he afford to pay,” said Hilliard, with breathtaking naivety.

Clearly a cricketing organisation cannot be expected to have the same powers of investigation as American federal authorities, but the rumours of money laundering had long been rife and it was known that the US Treasury some years ago had warned against investing with Antiguan offshore banks. Private Eye carried a damning piece about Stanford's affairs in the summer. If it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

Secondly, this was intended to be a strategic move designed to bolster the ECB's position against increasing dominance of the market by India. Because of the relationship with Stanford, English cricket turned down much more lucrative opportunities with India, South Africa and Australia. Although the Twenty20 bubble has started to burst, it is clear that the ECB backed the wrong horse.

Thirdly, it was clear from the moment Stanford, a man with a self-confessed loathing of cricket, arrived at Lord's in a gold-plated helicopter, brandishing $20 million, that cricket was being used as little more than a rich man's plaything. Nothing that happened that day, or in the week in Antigua that followed, could convince any sane observer that this was anything but a tawdry exercise.

Money often brings out the worst in people. It has certainly brought out the worst in English cricket and the men who run it. They have got exactly what they deserved.