Why did no one else preach caution? It is as though English sport, having missed so many entrepreneurial opportunities over the last 200 years, now can't resist whoever offers to pimp her out next. Amateurism still casts a paradoxical shadow over English cricket: two centuries of saying, "We don't touch the money" has been supplanted by the mantra, "As long as it's not amateurism, we'll do it." When virgins fall, they fall hard.

Now we know more about Stanford Investment Bank and its "unique investment strategy". Clarke may be bruised, but he is certainly not repentant. He admits a measure of embarrassment about the Stanford affair but stands by his judgment. 

The defence of Clarke falls into three main categories. A weary altruism heads the list. Clarke likes to say that "Stanford had done a lot of good things for cricket in the West Indies." Sadly, Clarke is not chairman of the West Indies Cricket Board, but chairman of the English board. English cricket is the constituency he should serve. Second, the chairman says he has received 3,000 supportive private emails. This is balanced by about 3,000 public emails - in other words, newspaper articles - that haven't been so positive. And anyway, even President George W. Bush had a 27 per cent approval rating when he left office.