When, during the match between Middlesex and Trinidad & Tobago on Monday evening, the camera panned on to David Collier, the chief executive of the ECB, who was sitting on the balcony with Allen Stanford and accepting his hospitality, the picture was an uncertain one. Was that a smile or a grimace on his face? As he jiggled in his seat, with reggae blasting away in the background, was Dave busting his moves (yeah, man!) in a particularly frigid English way or was he wriggling with embarrassment? Because from what we have seen so far, the ECB has pawned the national team off for little more than a rich man's ego trip.

English cricket has become Stanford's WAG.

WAG, of course, a term coined during the football World Cup finals in Germany in 2006, does not really stand for wife and girlfriend; it stands for someone who is noteworthy only for the movements and actions of someone else; someone who is unthinkingly and uncritically admiring. An appendage, in other words. And from the moment Stanford landed his helicopter at Lord's in June, trailing his cash, with the ECB's officials fawning all over him, English cricket has been reduced to WAG status.

The Texan billionaire's canoodling with some of the England players' wives and girlfriends (who proved their WAG status by requiring others to get upset on their behalf) is the moment that has brought the issue into sharp focus, but that is the least of it.

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• Why didn't the wives say no?

There was no intention to offend, just a bit of harmless fun. How lovely it would have been to see one of the women give him a good slap, or tweak his moustache in irritation.

Harmless, then, but once again it concentrated attention on the only person that matters this week. And don't fool yourself that it is any of the players on view. This is Stanford's show. He has a personal cameraman and at least once during every game the attention switches from the cricket (also reduced to WAG status) to Stanford as he makes a tour of his fiefdom, meeting and greeting, lifting children up and cooing in their ears and bouncing good-looking women on his knee.

Then there is his access to England - the team photo with the players and the right of entry to the dressing-room; a sacred place, but not this week. Just outside the dressing-room is a sign on which the photos of those allowed in are posted for security reasons. Right in the middle is Stanford. Next time you are at Lord's, why don't you knock on the door, too? After all, what is the difference, in cricketing terms, between you and Stanford? Nothing - except a few noughts on the end of your bank balance.

This is just a modern twist on an ancient tale of temples and the money men. The ECB will argue that all this was not part of the contract, part of the deal. But didn't they read the small print? When rich men get involved in sport this is usually how it ends up. I was at Old Trafford in 1989 when Michael Knighton (a pauper by Stanford's standards) dribbled his way towards the Stretford End and buried one in the bottom corner during his abortive attempt to buy Manchester United, his schoolboy dream.

Sport ought not to be like this, though. We all know that it is a business, of course, but when the action starts and the focus switches from the boardroom to the field, that is when money is supposed to be irrelevant. The playing field, the dressing-room should be two of the few remaining altars over which money has no power. The England dressing-room? You're supposed to get access to that by your talent, your dedication, your passion and willingness to chase a long-cherished dream - not by the size of your bank account. Once such a place loses its mystique, it is cheapened.

Those who run English cricket will justify their involvement with Stanford in many ways. Money is the least of it, actually, since the $3.5 million (about £2.2million) that goes to the ECB each year is small beer. Sure, the West Indies Cricket Board needs the money more, and there is a genuine desire to help it on the part of English cricket. No, the deal with Stanford was initially about keeping England's IPL-starved cricketers sweet and then, as England and India have begun to squabble more and more, it has morphed into something more political - an attempt to shore up support from the West Indies against increasing Indian dominance.

What is the price of self-respect, though? No wonder Collier may have been squirming: he'd just realised English cricket had become a WAG. Don't worry, David, there's only four more years of bondage left.