WHEN something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Players in the England and the Middlesex squads might have suspected that to earn thousands and thousands of pounds by showing up for a few 20-over jousts was simply too easy for comfort.

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Now dreams of lucre have been dashed. England, after earning nothing from their pathetic 10-wicket defeat in the Stanford match against the 'All Stars' in Antigua, look like earning less than nothing from Sir Allen Stanford in the future. And Middlesex's chance of big money in the Champions League in India has been postponed until probably October.

Even the Indian Premier League is not yet the cash-cow that the investors had hoped. The heavy initial outlay will take time to recoup in the worsening recession, and the more modest Champions League, an international event, could prove to be the real long-term winner. Stanford failed to sell £10 million worth of broadcasting rights for his England-Caribbean venture and might well pull the plug, even though his desire to help West Indies cricket cannot be doubted.

The England and Wales Cricket Board said they were unaware of reports that the Texan was considering pulling out of the five-year deal, which included pumping money into the English Twenty20 Cup and expanding it with two foreign teams. Even the winner-takes-all Stanford match might be discontinued, which would be a shame for those individuals hoping to pocket about £640,000 in the future as the West Indian victors did in October.

The only evidence so far that the Stanford bubble might burst is the termination of the contracts enjoyed by the eight West Indian 'Legends' for fronting the cricket, including Sir Viv Richards, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. The Stanford ideal is not doomed, though the cash mountain might have to be shaved down.

To amend a comment by Al Capone -- "you get much further with a kind word and wads of cash than you can with a kind word alone" -- the Stanford affair and the IPL have destabilised international cricket. Capone used a gun, but a wealthy Texan and the Indian Cricket Board have used the same tactic with power.

For example, the persecution of the unofficial Indian Cricket League, who filled a void the Indian authorities initially ignored, has been deplorable, and the promise of significant money has turned the heads of players, leading to the cancellation of Sri Lanka's tour of England next summer.

The black bats used for the Stanford match did not conform to the Laws of Cricket, as interpreted by the custodians MCC; yet the ECB turned a blind eye. This vulgarity was hardly good for 20-over cricket, an excellent vehicle for public interest.

A judge in London prevented Stanford from marginalising the long-suffering West Indies sponsors, Digicel, with an outrageous conjuring trick. The idea that the All Stars was not the West Indies always seemed far-fetched and, indeed, did not pass the scrutiny of the arbitration court. Thank goodness the two warring corporations had the sense not to fritter away their sponsorship money on a High Court battle.

The West Indies Board have been made to look like idiots, not for the first time, and the ECB have been too vulnerable to the Stanford foot in the door sales pitch. The ECB will benefit from a fee of more than £2 million from the Twenty20 game in Antigua, but from now on expectations will have to be tempered with a dollop of scepticism.