You either love Allen Stanford or you hate him. After eight days of his Super Series last week in Antigua, that’s the conclusion I have to come to.

His multi-million dollar venture ended in a fireworks extravanganza on Saturday night.

It left 15 Englishmen red-faced with embarassment and empty-handed; their West Indian - correction, Superstars - counterparts with US$20million smiles on their faces.

Grinning along with them was their in-your-face Texas benefactor, Stanford, the man who turned average Johnnys into millionaires in three hours.

That he did so through a winner-take-all match on his own ground, according to his rules, creating cricket if you will, Stanford style, did not make everyone happy. But the beneficiaries of the man’s largesse clearly couldn’t be bothered.

The mix made for a novel week, filled with the bitter and the sweet.

That’s the best way I can describe it.

To get the foolishness out of the way first, let’s deal with Kevin Pietersen, the England captain.

He was right as rain when he said ’a lot of nonsense’ had gone on last week. But the tata had nothing to do with the low hanging lights at the cricket ground or the quality of the pitches.

You would think that the professionals that the English players pride themselves in being would have been able to deal with those variables without complaint. (Had they never played on a pitch with a ridge in it or one that was up and down?)

And when they duly received a hiding from Chris Gayle and his Superstars, you would have thought Pietersen would have cut his losses and leave things at ’well done’ and the ’better side won’.

But no, hear him: ’There are some very happy guys here who are not as fortunate as us. When you know how under-privileged some of them are compared to us, and you see boys crying and mums and dads too, it’s fantastic for them.’

The England and Wales Cricket Board better organise some classes in diplomacy for this fellow. He need a lock for his mouth!

Far from coming across as gracious in defeat, the England captain contrived to make himself sound patronising.

It did nothing to remove the impression that his side had taken this trip and their opponents for granted. With an attitude like that, it is no surprise that they took the bait of their press corps and distracted themselves with the pitch, the lights and that wife-in-the-lap scene.

If I was Matt Prior, the England wicketkeeper, and my wife was up on big TV screens in some man’s lap, I would be seeing red too. But the question would be not what de hell HE was doing, but what on earth SHE was thinking to CHOOSE to sit down on Stanford. As for the UK media - running with that story and any others remotely negative, as fast as Usain Bolt covered the track in Beijing - they played their part in their own team’s demise.

I should know how influential the press can be. But this was a real close-up lesson in deception, boy.

Everything from pictures taken out of context, to the ignoring of those who did or might have a less-than-dim view of proceedings were ignored in their ’Get Stanford’ campaign.

So readers in the UK probably never read this opinion by the Middlesex captain Shaun Udal following his side’s game against the Superstars: ’It’s been a hell of a spectacle. It’s building up nicely to Saturday. The atmosphere tonight was brilliant. The crowd was fantastic. At the end of the day, it’s Sir Allen Stanford’s ground, it’s his money - I think he can do whatever he wants to do, to be totally honest.’

England’s national team would have been better served following the example of their club side.

Udal did advise Stanford though to stay out of the dressing rooms, because that is the players’ space.

But Stanford is a man very big on self promotion. Outside of each dressing room there was a picture of all those with access to the area.

There were no faces there of