It's hard not to warm to Peter Moores. With his boyish smile and childlike enthusiasm, he's an easy chap to like.

And he is, by all accounts, an excellent coach. He's got all his badges and everything - you can just imagine him asking mum to sew them on to his official ECB tracksuit.

Unfortunately, his childlike qualities extend to naivety judging by his take on the Stanford affair.

"You can't get away from the fact that there's a lot of money involved but we have seen the whole nature of cricket change over the last 12 months.

"But, realistically, when the lads walk out there they will be playing for the badge like they always do for England and will try and win that game to create some momentum to take to India."

Bless him. The badge. Yes, that's what they're playing for: that's why the match is called the Stanford 20/20 for the Pride and Honour of the Crown and Her Majesty.

When the coach is less worldly wise than Alastair Cook - an England cricketer so green he's only just got round to releasing his first autobiography - it's surely a worry.

But Moores got one thing sort of right when he said the Stanford Series can provide momentum for India.

Almost. England don't need more momentum - they've got plenty after the unexpected but most welcome end to the summer's action - but they do need to maintain what they've got.

But winning a big wad of cash certainly won't hurt; losing a big wad of cash almost certainly will.

The ECB couldn't have forecast the way the summer would end when they jumped into bed with Sir Allen.

But without the Antigua money match, England would be heading into a crucial winter with spirits high. Now, there's the very real risk that a divided squad begins the proper countdown to the Ashes still quietly seething that Luke Wright's dropped catch/Matt Prior's missed stumping/James Anderson's no-ball/Alastair Cook's selection cost them a bumper pay-out.

And that means the ECB and Team England are gambling with far more than money in Antigua.

* I had planned to offer my two cents' on the Ryan McLaren saga, but Jon and Julia have already got this thorny subject well covered. Worth a look if you haven't already, although when I saw the headlines McLaren To Blame and McLaren Not At Fault on the front page I did think for a moment I'd stumbled into Planet F1 by mistake...