England are hurting over Stanford's wife flirting

The man behind the richest cricket match ever was today forced to apologise to the England team after his inappropriate behaviour with the players' wives.

Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford was shown on TV flirting with the partners of several of the England team including Matt Prior's pregnant wife while England were playing Middlesex in a warm-up game for this weekend's £10million clash against the West Indian Superstars.

The incident has given the competition more bad headlines, with the players already struggling to adapt to the slow pitch and poor floodlighting.

Middlesex dropped three high catches last night as they lost out on a $300,000 pay day by losing to Trinidad by five wickets.

Stanford kept a low profile at the ground last night after some members of Pietersen's team were said to be upset by the images from Sunday, which not only appeared on televisions around the world but were also shown on the two giant TV screens inside the ground, with a shot of Prior's pregnant partner, Emily, sitting on the Texan billionaire's knee causing most offence.

One unnamed player has been quoted as saying: "If that was my wife he'd put on his lap I would have wanted to punch him."