JAMES Anderson believes the pressure of winning a single cricket match may be unrivalled when England fight for Stanford’s riches in the Caribbean this winter.

The Lancashire fast bowler will scoop the biggest pay-day of his career if Kevin Pietersen’s men land the $20million winner-takes-all Twenty20 clash on November 1.

With $1million, roughly £500,000, up for stake for each winning player, and not a penny to the losing side, the stakes could not be higher for England’s 15-man squad.

It is a staggering amount of cash on the table; a life-changing sum for the likes of Anderson.

And while the Burnley-born seamer would like to treat the lucrative match against the Stanford Superstars just like any other, he can’t help but concede that the very nature of the money on offer may put the weight of the world on players’ shoulders.

“Obviously, there’s been a lot said about the Stanford match, not only in the press but also in the dressing room,” said the 26-year-old.

“It’s been talked about a lot because it’s such a big amount of money for a one-off game.

“It’s a strange one – there will be a lot of pressure.

“It’s going to be interesting on how we deal with the pressure on the day, because we haven’t faced anything like this before.”

And Anderson believes England’s older heads – the likes of captain Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff – may face the brunt of the intensity, more than their younger team-mates.

He added: “Everyone in the team will feel the pressure, not just the younger players but the experienced players as well.”

A few eyebrows have been raised over the extraordinary sums of money now pouring into world cricket, almost exclusively at the sport’s Twenty20 competitions, such as the flourshing Indian Premier League, Indian Cricket League, and the eagerly anticipated Champions League tourn-ament.

The influx of cash, however, has led to cricket’s world-class stars earning almost as much as their football counterparts, and Anderson is pleased to see the sport’s leading performers rewarded.

“It’s good for cricket that there’s a bit of money there,” he said. “It’s all come with the popularity of Twenty20 cricket.

“Supporters coming into grounds has helped the game progress in England. We’ve now got the IPL and the ICL, and that’s helped as well.”

For now, Anderson has eight weeks to prepare for, financially, the biggest game of his life.

And while unavailable for Lancashire’s final two County Championship games of the season, the seamer intends to take best use of his two-month break and reflect on what has been his best year to date on the international stage.

In home Test series against New Zealand and South African this summer, Anderson was England’s leading wicket-taker on both occasions, claiming 19 Kiwi scalps at 19.31 and 15 wickets at 33.93 against the Proteas.

“It could not have gone much better for me personally,” he said. “It has been my best year for an international summer.”