Lalit vs Gilesy - it's on

To the surprise of no-one, Lalit Modi is suing Giles Clarke. Gilesy's attempt to stitch Lalit up might backfire spectacularly. UK libel laws favour the claimant to an absurd degree - for a start Clarke has to prove that what he says is true, rather than Lalit having to demonstrate that it's not. Good luck with that, Giles.

Even Gilesy, who for a clever man is quite thick on occasions, may realise that this is just a tactic from Lalit, some leverage in a wider war. But if Lalit gets nasty, the fall-out for the ECB, in terms of damages, could be considerable. It always does to pick your battles...

Moose head on the wall

Sir Allen Stanford has come out fighting - literally. 

The man who (allegedly) means there's a full one degree of separation between Giles Clarke and a Mexican drug cartel has given an interview outside a restaurant in Houston. 'If you say that to my face again, I'll punch you,' he told the reporter who'd asked if he was a money launderer.

Highlights came thick and fast. Unlike Michael Vaughan, Sir Allen gives good interview. 'I've always lived very frugally,' he said. 'I flew around in a private jet, I had a boat, but I lived frugally. I'm the maverick rich Texan where they can put the moose head on the wall.'

The idea that the Stanford Bank was a Ponzi scheme was 'baloney, baloney, baloney,' and the rumour that he is a CIA spy was 'foreign to every bone in my body'.

But he did say something enlightening, too. Talking about the queues that formed outside Caribbean banks when news of his arrest came, he said, 'it broke my heart, but nobody lost a dollar'.

The queues were widely televised, as was the 'hunt' for Stanford. But if what he says is true, and all bank deposits were backed, then that fact has been somewhat under-reported, as has the news that yesterday he had another $100m in assets frozen.

Stanford's money, or some of it at least, seems to exist, unlike Madoff's. I have no idea whether he's defrauded anyone or not, but his story is as much about how the media handles it as it is about the money now. He is, as he says, the moose head on the wall, the guy with the Mexican drug cartels and the CIA forever attached to his name.  And Giles Clarke, too. 

Full extent of Stanford fraud exposed

Penniless Sir Allen Stanford has today revealed the full extent of the fraud that has cost him 'in excess of $20m'. 

'It's a con on a massive scale,' said Sir Allen from the secret location at which he is currently hiding from Giles Clarke. 'They told me they were sending a cricket team over. You should have seen them. They were useless. Looking back, I don't believe that they had ever played a game of Twenty20 before'. 

Speaking of the moment when the deception became public, Sir Allen went on: 'As soon as this guy Ian Bell opened the batting, I began to get the feeling that I'd been had. And when Steve Harmison started bowling, I knew it for sure.'

Stanford claimed to be unaware of the reputation of Giles Clarke and the ECB. 'We conducted due diligence, but hell, I'm American. I'd never heard of these cowboys. That Lord's place looked good, but now I'm thinking it probably wasn't even theirs.'

Told of Stanford's claims, Giles Clarke said, 'We contracted with Sir Allen to provide a cricket team, and as far as I'm concerned, that's what we did. I've seen Ian Bell's passport and it definitely says 'cricketer' in the back. Sir Allen knew exactly what he was getting. By the way, if you see him, can you tell him he still owes us four more matches. He doesn't seem to be answering his phone.'

Sir Allen concluded: 'I'll admit their girlfriends were nice, but they weren't worth $20m. Getting involved with the ECB has ruined me. I expect I'll end up in prison'.

The Stanford Non-Prison Experiment (ii)

The papers here in England were a festival of predictability, albeit mitigated in terms of length by their need to devote several acres of otherwise useful space to the latest developments at Harringay Hotspurs and/or some man who drove a billion-dollar racing car slightly faster than some other man. The prevailing view, naturally, was: England - rubbish, Stanford Superstars - heartwarming, now can we go to India please... 

But the nugget of elusive truth was in there, and the Batsman finally stumbled on it via this quote from Giles Clarke, the ECB's own shining superstar: 'the week has brought to the surface a large amount of cultural and philosophical issues'.

Giles old mate, you've got that one right. 

Some years ago, Bill Drummond, who was a pop star with a group called KLF, took a million quid - which represented most, if not all, of his earnings from said group - and threw the lot onto a bonfire. It was meant to be some sort of arch art-terrorism prank, but as Drummond later admitted, it ruined his life. 

England had tied themselves in knots over earning an easy mil - 'can I smile when we pick up the cheque; how long should I leave it before I buy the new motor etc etc' - when the real freight of Stanford's brutally brilliant offer has its heft elsewhere. Each of the defeated players will, one quiet evening many months from now, realise that they do not have $1m. They would not be human if they didn't. Drummond suffered months of depression as the feeling sank into his bones.

Sporting careers, like life in the middle ages, can be nasty, brutish and short. As Chris Gayle said, 'who doesn't need a million dollars?'. What England did wrong was allow liberal guilt to eat into their heads like brainworms. 

In Clarke's desire to get the players a sop as the IPL set sail without them, he certainly considered the downsides of England winning the match. But how long did he think about the downsides of not winning it? 

NB: The county chairmen who elected Clarke to the ECB are now astonished to find that Giles, who after all has an MA in Persian from Oxford as well as various wine and pet emporiums, has been outnegotiated by a billionaire financier from Texas with many years of experience in ramping sports events and another man who turned India into the new powerbase of the game overnight. They might not even re-elect him, they threaten. Now, now chaps. English cricket didn't get where it is today by being hasty...