The usual nights for the National Lottery draw are Wednesday and Saturday, but this week it was on a Tuesday. There were 15 lucky ticket holders, most of whom were fairly confident that their number would come up (having a name like Pietersen or Collingwood was an advantage).

The only difference was that each of them was holding two tickets: one wins them $1 million (£500,000), the other sends them home without a penny. Welcome to cricket’s Big Draw, the $20 million Stanford Twenty20 Super Series.

When the England squad were named yesterday for November’s Stanford bonanza in Antigua, the selection was submitted to more than the usual who’s-in, who’s-out analysis that greets such announcements. It was not so much who has made the grade as who is about to make the biggest payday in cricket history.

Sir Allen Stanford, the billionaire Texas banker who has lived in the West Indies for 26 years, has put up a purse of $20 million for a single match between England and his West Indies All Stars. The winning players will each get $1 million, another $1 million will be shared among the rest of the squad, and $1 million will go to the management team; the remaining $7 million will be split between the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the West Indies Cricket Board. At current exchange rates, that equates to £566,000 per player, each of whom will be watching the pound’s decline on the international currency exchanges with delight: the more it falls, the more they earn.

For the stars, such as the England captain, Kevin Pietersen, and Andrew Flintoff, who are already earning about £1 million a year, once endorsements are taken into account, the money would be welcome, if not life-changing. For others, it represents more than they have earned in their life, or more than illustrious predecessors earned in a career. For three hours’ work.

Take Samit Patel. Until last month the 23-year-old Nottinghamshire player had never even appeared for England. Then he made his debut in the one-day series against South Africa and suddenly found himself in the running for the Stanford millions.

“For a guy like him, who is probably on £30,000 to £40,000 from Nottinghamshire, half a million pounds would turn his finances on their head,” said Dave Ligertwood, of Essentially, a sports marketing agency.

Another member of the squad, Graeme Swann, said: “I am the world’s worst person with money. If I got £360,000 after tax, I would probably buy a bright pink Ferrari and waste it all like a Premiership footballer.”

Such remarks are unlikely to go down well with preStanford generations of cricketers. “People like Graham Thorpe and Alec Stewart never earned more than £200,000 a year from cricket,” Mr Ligertwood said.

The unprecedented purse has already caused problems. There were tensions in the England dressing room before the deal was finalised as the players debated how to divide the potential spoils. When the fast bowler Steve Harmison was persuaded to make a surprise comeback to one-day cricket, he felt obliged to say that his return was not motivated by the lure of Sir Allen’s largesse.

It could make for an exciting match; the possibility of $13 million resting on the last over – or ball – should get pulses going. “There will be a lot of nerves jangling,” Mr Ligertwood said. “For the younger guys in the team who have nothing and suddenly have the chance of winning half a million pounds, perhaps it will have an impact. Wasn’t there a young Irish golfer who missed a two-foot putt on the European tour recently?”

To put it another way: guys, don’t even think about dropping that catch.

The Stanford effect

— The England 15-man squad for the Stanford Super Series and the one-day series in India: Kevin Pietersen (captain), James Anderson, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Andrew Flintoff, Stephen Harmison, Samit Patel, Matt Prior (wicketkeeper), Owais Shah, Graeme Swann, Ryan Sidebottom, Luke Wright

— Sir Allen Stanford, the billionaire financier who is funding the series, is a fifth-generation Texan with Antiguan-Barbudan citizenship who lives in the US Virgin islands

— The inaugural Stanford Twenty20 tournament, featuring teams from the main Caribbean islands, took place in 2006 and was won by Guyana

— Sir Allen has promised to make monthly payments of $15,000 to the Caribbean countries taking part over the next three years

— Winning players will earn $1 million each from the one-off Stanford Twenty20, with another $1 million split between the rest of the squad, and the ECB getting $3.5 million

— A $20 million match will be held annually in November for the next five years

Sources: www.stanford2020.com, Times database