Giles Smith: an amateur's manhunt guide | How Stanford's illusion of wealth fooled cricket chiefs | Cricket chiefs sever ties as calls grow for Giles Clarke's resignation | Stanford: the television flickers inside and groceries arrive but still no one answers the door

When they lost an England captain and head coach on the same extraordinary day in January, the ECB hierarchy praised themselves for firm management. Yesterday, after scrapping the Stanford deal, they talked about their own prudence in ensuring that counties will not be out of pocket. If there were a league table for audacity then the ECB would be top of the tree.

Has a governing body ever so smugly or brazenly missed the point? The issue is not whether the 18 first-class counties may be a few thousand pounds short (they won't be), but why on earth the ECB agreed terms with a man of questionable repute who had been rejected by India, South Africa and Australia. Even the ICC declined to do business with Stanford.

Pressure can only intensify on Giles Clarke as the ECB chairman, even with his ratification for another two years in the post expected on Monday. Think of Clarke and the mind recalls images of him greeting Stanford off a black helicopter and beaming from behind a Perspex chest of dollar bills at Lord's. Just as Tony Blair never recovered from Iraq, Clarke will not be the same after Stanford.

Stanford confirms sport is a whore

Once money replaced the pursuit of excellence as the prime motivator, there could be no turning back, says Simon Barnes

• FBI tracks down Allen Stanford to Virginia

• ECB leadership has much to answer for

• Giles Clarke left in line of fire over fallout from Allen Stanford

Stanford affair leaves sportsmen at sea

Suspicions that money could be tainted will be haunting agents and sports executives, as well as the Texan's customers

• Hunt for Allen Stanford and his billions

• Sky-high returns that investors found hard to resist

• Giles Clarke left in line of fire over fallout from Allen Stanford

Multimedia

• Should Clarke resign from the ECB?

• Is this the end for Allen Stanford?

Related Links

• Revealed: how Stanford created illusion of wealth

• Key to toppling Stanford is right-hand woman

• Cricket chiefs sever ties with Stanford

Even with his thick skin, a virtue at times, he will struggle to survive the rest of the year in office. Elsewhere in these pages, Neil Davidson, the Leicestershire chairman, explains why he thinks that Clarke's credibility has gone. Davidson has been a frequent critic, but that should not undermine his argument. It amounts to this: Giles, for the sake of English cricket, go!

The press release to follow the ECB executive meeting where the decision was taken to sever links with Stanford - although charges over an alleged $8billion (about £5.5billion) fraud had pretty much done that already - will do Clarke no favours. Good propaganda disguises its bias; this statement was so one-eyed that even the least inquisitive minds will ask questions.

John Pickup, the chairman of the ECB recreational assembly, said: “At a time when the economic climate is putting great pressure on sponsorship and finances for club and community sport, the ECB has taken a prudent and responsible attitude to its financial planning. The report from the chief executive [David Collier] demonstrated the wisdom of this approach.”

Collier said that the board had been shocked by charges against Stanford and that in the light of disputes between the West Indies Cricket Board and Digicel, the West Indies sponsor, and the uncertainty of the financial markets, a contingency was created in case the Stanford games in Antigua did not proceed. Payments to the counties and the club game are therefore unaffected.

The ECB got into bed with Stanford purely because it wanted to provide an alternative to the Indian Premier League (IPL) for England players. Kevin Pietersen, who will play in the IPL in April, disabused that idea at the very launch of Stanford's smaller competition for domestic sides.

The end of the Stanford deal marks the final triumph of Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, over the ECB. By siding with Stanford against the Indians, the ECB weakened its links with Australia and South Africa and missed out on potential riches of the Champions League. Its own alternative has been quietly shelved.

So this is “prudence” and “wisdom”. What, to the ECB, would constitute chaos and failure?