Sport on TV: No knee jerks please: case for the defence at Stanford's bash

Like Keith Richards, this column is going out on a limb of a palm tree. The Stanford Super Series is great. It's just like village cricket. The pitch is awful, the outfield badly needs a cut, catches are going down willy-nilly. And beyond the boundaries of decency there are even shenanigans with the players' wives. With £600,000 in their pockets, someone might even get a round in.

As Sir Allen Stanford went around his ground, signing autographs and guessing the weight of Matt Prior's unborn baby, the commentator Tony Cozier said: "Ask him to sign a cheque, will you?" Everyone wants a piece of the action. The most disturbing sight of the week was not the WAGs, it was the ICC president, David Morgan, laughing hysterically at one of Sir Allen's jokes. In the studio, Ian Ward said the words "Twenty-twenty for twenty" 600,000 times. Paul Allott said of Stanford's Prior engagement: "It's his ground, he can sit where he likes."

It took Lionel Baker from volcano-ravaged Montserrat to put it into much-needed perspective. Asked what he will do if he wins $1m, he said: "I'd finish my mum's house, then build myself one." He just wants a roof over his head. By contrast, as Mike Atherton pointed out: "Andrew Flintoff is knocking down a house in Prestbury and building another one. Kevin Pietersen has just bought a whacking pad in Chelsea." According to reports, the house Freddie is knocking down cost £2m, and the new one will be worth £4m. Wayne Rooney did the same – in the same Cheshire town. Is filthy lucre turning our cricketers into footballers? That's as good a case as any to put a stop to this nonsense.

But is it nonsense? Take England out of the equation, and what we have is a local benefactor who has already pumped millions into two regional tournaments. Even the man of the match would pick up $10,000 just for taking a blinding catch, which would be enough to change his life. The purpose of these shindigs is to revive interest in cricket in the Caribbean, where US sports have taken over just as the national side's fortunes declined since their world domination in the 1980s.

Baker said: "In basketball, you win a lot of money. Now cricket's having the money, so the youngsters come back into the game and bring more excitement to it." Stanford's Superstars had six weeks' training, which is more than the West Indies Cricket Board ever called for. Of the 17 Superstars, five have never had a chance to play for West Indies and four have come into the team since the Stanford events began. Andre Fletcher, who hit 90 not out with seven sixes on Thursday, cannot get in the Windward Islands team. "These guys are learning very quickly," said David Lloyd. And so are we all.

Stanford would disagree with Keith Richards' assertion "You can't always get what you want". Just ask Matt Prior.