ENGLAND coach Peter Moores admitted his team were dealt an expensive lesson after they flunked the winner-takes-all Stanford 20-over showdown.
Kevin Pietersen's men slumped to their lowest Twenty20 score, hitting just seven fours between them in a paltry 99, and were crushed by 10 wickets with 44 balls unused.
Stanford Superstars captain Chris Gayle emphasised the chasm in class on the n
ight, and sparked jubilant celebrations, including a Hollywoodesque fireworks display, by hitting his fifth six of an unbeaten 65 off Andrew Flintoff.
Despite the terms of team sport's largest-ever purse being very clear, England's players seemed to find it difficult to unclutter their minds, questioning the pioneering venture of representing your country and chasing one million dollars a man in the process. There was no such dichotomy for the Superstars, individuals who were focused solely on the jackpot rather than playing for a national team with heritage.
"We are going to go to India now and have we learned a lesson? We have probably learned a very expensive lesson if I am being honest," said Moores.
"You can never get off the focus of the game and we played against a very hungry, disciplined side.
"All credit to the lads, what they wanted to do was keep their integrity and not in any way let it be portrayed that they were just playing for the cash."
The England and Wales Cricket Board is to review the name of the side for future events, having chosen to remain as England for this week for branding reasons as cricket branches into the American television market.
Their failure to get anywhere near their previous low of 135 against Australia in 2007 would not, however, have been a good advertisement.
"One thing I know about the players is that they are desperate to play for the badge," Moores added. "Every time you play for England it is about playing for England but the whole issue of money was in people's heads. Maybe that didn't hit some of the guys really until after the game was played. People talk about focus in sport and I don't know if we were as absolutely clear as we could have been. The hurting part is that we got absolutely nailed in an international game playing for England. That hurt. As it should do. What we didn't do is pitch up and play the kind of cricket we can and that was disappointing."
England's top order, captain Pietersen among them, were dismissed in a flurry of failed improvisations, which contrasted sharply to the Superstars' approach. While the visiting batsmen opted to walk around in the crease and heave across the line, Gayle and Andre Fletcher emphasised the value in hitting orthodox strokes with extreme power. Both could have been run out in the infancy of their innings but England, requiring early wickets to have any chance in the US$20 million encounter, spurned each opportunity.
Twenty-year-old Fletcher, one of the finds of Stanford's involvement in Caribbean cricket, responded emphatically to the let-offs with three fours in the second over, sent down by Stuart Broad, to provide the home team with some early momentum.
Within an hour, he was down on his knees as Gayle ploughed the ball into the crowd at long-on and his team-mates hurdled onto the field to begin the celebrations.
Pietersen, humble in defeat, said: "To see a guy fall over in front of me at the end of the game, crying, with one million dollars in his bank account, was absolutely fantastic.
"I am a human being and these guys are fellow professionals – quite a few of them are a lot less privileged than I am – and to see them so happy was wonderful.
"We blame ourselves for our performance because we are professionals and we should have dealt with stuff a lot better. The West Indies guys have been here for six weeks, they did a fantastic job, so hats off to them.
"They wanted it so much, they had their plans right and we were outplayed by a team which was more hungry. You bump your head and you learn from it. We bumped our heads."
Although England captain Pietersen opted to bat first in Sir Allen Stanford's financial bonanza, only three men reached double figures during an underwhelming batting effort.
They managed only seven fours between them, a proportion of which were via edges – a total the opposition openers managed inside the first five overs of the reply.
Upon levelling that boundary count, Superstars captain Gayle then upped the tempo to pump up the volume levels in the stands, by turning his attention to sixes, cracking Steve Harmison over the rope at long-on and deep midwicket.
England's failure to separate the first-wicket pair provided the licence the home team needed to provide the excitement associated with the 20-over format.
Gayle revelled in the limelight.
If Fletcher's early blitz of fours provided the impetus, Gayle took on the baton to the finish, crossing the line with ease.
Gayle to spend new wealth on health care for his familyMILLION-dollar-winning captain Chris Gayle has vowed to use his new windfall to fund treatment for ill members of his family.
Stanford Superstars opener Gayle cracked an explosive, unbeaten 65 to leave England embarrassed and empty-handed in Sir Allen Stanford's inaugural 20/20 for 20 contest.
After celebrating the 10-wicket thrashing in his customary cool style – strolling his lap of honour with bat aloft like a triumphant gladiator – the 29-year-old revealed he wants to ensure better health for brother Andrew and father Dudley.
Although he has not gone into details of their problems – he missed the first match of the Stanford Super Series because of his concern for their state back in Jamaica – it is known that Andrew has a heart condition.
"I will definitely hook up my brother to a doctor to fix his heart," said Gayle, who had corrective surgery on his own heart in 2005. "I have found it hard this week for medical reasons involving my brother and my father. I am definitely going to sort them out, there are no two ways about it, I am going to get on it right away. It's the first thing I will do. This is better than anything in the world, I tell you straight up, I am not going to lie. I am truly grateful for what happened here."
Gayle, who heads off to Abu Dhabi with West Indies for a series against Pakistan in the coming days, added: "This is some of the most pressure I have ever been under coming into this game, for family reasons and negative stuff off the field. I am going to take two days to be by myself because this week I have been really stressed out. The thing about me is that no-one can tell I am under pressure, I don't show emotion that much. If something is wrong with me you don't always know because that's the kind of person I am."
Gayle and his Caribbean collective showed a ruthless determination to pocket the US$1million a man on offer to the winners, and he was personally inspired no doubt by his joshing with close friend Kevin Pietersen, who told his opposite number he did not need the money.
"Who doesn't need a million? You have to be crazy, you know?" said Gayle. "He said we need it more than him, so we are grateful for that. We have worked hard for six weeks and the guys really deserve it. Even if you had a million before, another million will still change your life. You can spend it on what you want, invest it in whatever you choose, it is your money and you deserve it."
But Pietersen blamed England's failure to become dollar millionaires on a lack of focus.
"It was a disappointment really on how the team have handled the week," he said. "I said it was diving into the unknown, those deep waters of uncertainty. We certainly jumped in, got involved in the week, but as a team I don't think we did it the right way.
"We concentrated too much on other things in terms of outside stuff and distractions. When we do this next year it is a case of buying into it and giving it a heck of a good go and concentrating like we did in the one-day series against South Africa. We have not just been thinking about cricket and the game. Nobody in the world has played for US$20million in three hours before. Now we know how to deal with it in future years."
The full article contains 1472 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
