Cricket often wondered what would happen if it could sell itself to the Americans. On Saturday it will find out as the England team plays its part in a Texan’s vision of the game.

And what a vision it is: a toytown stadium, black bats, silver stumps, vulgar amounts of money and a contraction of the game’s skills into the time it takes to consume a jumbo burger, a tub of popcorn and a bucket of Pepsi. Bad taste, just another toxic asset the United States has given the world. Let us hope that, in these jittery times, the money is good.

Purists fret about what the Indians are doing to the game now they have got their commercial teeth into Twenty20, though as long as their national team thrash the Australians as they did in Mohali last week they will appreciate that Test cricket still has a place and a purpose.

But if Sir Allen Stanford has his way and successfully sells cricket to his fellow Americans, the long-term future of the five-day game could be in terminal decline. The England match, which has had a lot of publicity in the States, will be available there live through ESPN on pay-per-view, with two hours of highlights on terrestrial television the following day. Further concerted PR campaigns such as the one Stanford conducted in Colorado will be needed if serious headway is to be made. Momentum might be built if allrounder Lennox Cush, 33, who has represented the United States and is resident there, were to take the field against England, but he is likely to be among the six members of the Stanford Superstars squad left on the bench.

Speaking before departing for Antigua, Kevin Pietersen, the England captain, conceded that the rise of Twenty20 was a concern for Test cricket, which he regards as “the big stuff”. He said: “It is worrying what may happen in the future. Ten-year-olds now may be thinking they just want to play Twenty20. But [Test match] crowds in England are amazing. We always play in front of full houses here.”

Was there scope for other Stanfords to come along and set up more “exhibition” games? “Yes,” said Pietersen. “Hard as it is to say, cricket is a business, the ECB is a business. We play for our country and we just do as we are told by the ECB.”

Pietersen described Middlesex’s decision to sign Neil Carter on loan from Warwickshire for their showdown against Trinidad & Tobago tomorrow and the Champions League in December as a “disgrace”. But with Middlesex standing to pick up $280,000 for beating Trinidad and $3m for winning the Champions League, such brazen opportunism has become the name of the game. Pietersen’s words will certainly add spice to England’s warm-up match with Middlesex (and Carter) today.

Is Pietersen happy playing in a match so blatantly just about money? “I have to be . . . it’s what I’ve been picked to do,” he said. “I don’t think too deeply about decisions over which I don’t have control.” He stressed, however, that there would be no over-the-top flashing of riches if England were to win. “I have friends who are really struggling just now, people who have lost their jobs,” he said. “There is no way I want people to carry on like a clown, win or lose.”

Gradually, the Twenty20 revolution is redrawing the cricketing map. India, mightily, head the Asian bloc, with Sri Lanka and Pakistan in thrall to them financially and politically. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are attempting to strengthen their fragile balance sheets through a southern hemisphere Twenty20 and the Champions League.

Against these blocs, England’s alliance with a West Indies board that could not organise a party in a rum factory and an American financier who is never going to be a fan of Test cricket, which he dismisses as boring, looks like a marriage made in haste that they may yet repent at leisure. West Indies may agree to tour here next May in place of Sri Lanka, whose leading players are committed to play in the Indian Premier League, but they cannot solve all of England’s problems. If England want the English Premier League to take off in 2010, they need the Indians on board, which means England releasing their best players for the IPL.

The ECB’s announcement of increased prize money for domestic cricket seems to be a desperate attempt to reassert the primacy of its own competitions, £500,000 and £225,000 to the winners and runners-up in the county championship topping what Middlesex stand to win from Stanford if they beat Trinidad. So far, there has been a lot of moralising on money – there always is when it is too conspicuously on show – but the England players must now concentrate on the cricket and put the cash to the backs of their minds.

Making heroes and villains is why Stanford put up his money and why we will set aside our distaste and watch. If there isn’t a moment on Saturday when one player is turned into a million-dollar champ and another into a million-dollar chump then Stanford will think his investment a poor one. The players must avoid ending up as the latter – being a dollar millionaire is one of the better ways to get through a two-month tour of India.

History suggests that being cast as the villain in such high-pressure situations does not always sound the death knell for a career. Stuart Broad brushed off being hit for six sixes in an over by Yuvraj Singh; Chetan Sharma came back within weeks from being hit for six off the last ball of a one-dayer against arch-rivals Pakistan to finish as India’s hero on a tour of England; Shane Warne, naturally, recovered from dropping Pietersen and the Ashes.

On paper, England should win. Man for man, they are the stronger squad. They have more experience of international cricket and have played more Twenty20 matches, averaging 26.5 per man to the 7.3 of the Stanford Superstars players.

While England are at full strength, the Stanford Superstars – we must call them that rather than West Indies, although they are essentially a West Indies team – are without a number of players they would wish to field. These include Marlon Samuels, who struck the ball so mightily the last time England met West Indies in a Twenty20 but is now banned for fraternising with a bookmaker, Dwayne Bravo, sidelined with an ankle injury, and Xavier Marshall, suspended after testing positive for drugs. Two other talents, Wavell Hinds and Tino Best, have had their links with Caribbean cricket severed after they joined the rebel Indian Cricket League.

England followers will not recognise several of these so-called Superstars; some are not even young. But West Indies have cards up their sleeves. They may not have played much Twenty20 but much of what they have played has been at the Stanford Cricket Ground, home to the Stanford 20/20, the Caribbean’s domestic tournament, and where the Superstars have been playing their practice matches. There is no excuse for the Superstars being underprepared. They have had a six-week training camp and any number of warm-up games, seven of them in swift succession back in August, though some more recent games were disrupted by Hurricane Omar.

By now, they should know every bump of the field and how the pitch will behave. The surface will almost certainly be used during this week’s other games, so spinners could well play a central role. Dave Mohammed, a leg-spinner, was player of the tournament when Trinidad won the most recent Stanford 20/20, taking four for 20 as Guyana were routed in the final. Both he and Sulieman Benn, a slow left-armer, may feature in the Stanford starting XI.

In the August practice matches, the average first-innings score was only 141 (which is low for a small ground) and in the three most recent games the team batting first successfully defended their score, suggesting that on Saturday, after five matches in the previous seven days, batting first might be the way to go.

Pietersen said that England’s best team was likely to be the XI that completed a 4-0 trouncing of South Africa in ODIs earlier this year, although the attack might change if a second spinner is required. That could mean Graeme Swann coming in for James Anderson (economy rate 8.4) rather than Steve Harmison (7.3) or Broad (6.8).

The West Indian players have also played in big-money games before, as the final of the Stanford 20/20 carries a team prize of $1m – not quite $1m a man, but mind-concentrating stuff nevertheless. Ten of the 17 Superstars have taken part in a Stanford final, seven finishing as winners.

There is, of course, rich scope for the small man being the big hero, but such occasions usually see the men with the largest reputations stepping up to the plate – Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff for England perhaps, Chris Gayle and Shiv Chanderpaul for the Superstars.

If Gayle gets going he could scatter English plans to the wind faster than any Caribbean hurricane. Whoever wins, the law of unintended consequences could apply to both parties. Both teams crave victory but the dollars could distract as much as delight. With cricket booming while the world economy goes bust, there will be no rides on open-top buses or pedalos – just an uneasy feeling that cricket is, bit by bit, selling off chunks of its soul.