Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
A sporting and moral dilemma for a Sunday afternoon
I love cricket, it's my favourite sport and I love watching England play. However I've just seen Trott and Pietersen at the crease taking on South Africa and I felt nothing. It wasn't like watching England, they are South Africans representing England. Soon Morgan, an Irishman, will be out there too. Let me make it clear at this point I have no issue with Panesar, Mahmood etc or in the past Nasser Hussain as they were born in England, learnt their cricket in England and most importantly of all are English. There are others in the current team, Strauss and Prior who were not born in England but were educated and learnt their cricket here, it's a very thin line.
My dilemma is this, should I just let it go? No rules have been broken. Is it a fact of modern sport that I should just accept, national teams being made up of different nationalities? I have this fear that eventually we will have a team representing England with no Englishmen in it and then doesn't it become like any other game?
Advice and suggestions appreciated as always.
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Maybe
as an insider/outsider myself - I don't really have any issue with it.
In some ways, perhaps the make-up of teams reflecting diversity may help diffuse the unpleasant baying nationalism associated with national teams.
Although I do fail the Tebbit test or whatever it's called - as I support England against all opposition - except India. When I switch sides.
Sheev, if you don't mind me asking.
As India is now the financial centre of the cricket world and more non Indians are playing in their league system than ever do you think a South African, Sri Lankan, Englishman etc could ever represent India at international level?
It's a good question
and I'm sure it is a possibility in the future. I think it is probably tied in to some degree with the general economic progress of India. As there is a kind of reverse migration - it is possible to see people from the other cricketing nations going to live and work there - so that you will potentially see people of other backgrounds representing India.
In the immediate future, I think there's too much resistance in India to the notion of "hired guns" for the national team itself - as cricket is very much an expression of national pride for India and Indians. That, of course, doesn't apply to the IPL.
And not drawing comparisons with England (!) India has probably sufficient numbers of international class cricketers of Indian origin at the moment not to have cast the net too much wider
Hasn't cricket always done this?
Basil D'Oliveira, Tony and Ian Greig, Allan Lamb, the Smith brothers, the Hollioake brothers, Graeme Hick and probably lots more I can't remember at the moment.
Going back over nearly 50 years
yes there are some very high profile examples, more so in Enland than anywhere else. I just worry that there is a more driven trend towards the nationalisation of South Africans particularly in light of the colpack regulations.
"Doesn't it become like any other game?"
Err...no.
For the simple reason that there is actually no other game (that I can think of anyway) where the English team is so liberally sprinkled with 'foreigners' as cricket is currently (and has been historically).
Football? Owen Hargreaves the only one who comes close in recent memory.
Athletics? Zola Budd and...who else?
Boxing? Lennox Lewis (who was actually born in London anyway)
Tennis? Greg Ruzedski?
Interesting to note there were huge outcries concerning most, if not all, of the above adopting English nationality, at the time.
Cricket? Not so much.
In fact, cricket would become 'like any other game' only if it reduced the number of 'foreigners' playing for England, surely?
Sorry Paul
Not for the first time I didn't make myself very clear. What I was trying to say was it becomes like any other ordinary game of cricket. Missing that extra ingredient of following an English, England team, which in essence what drove me to make the post in the first place. You are absolutely right it happens more in crickt than any other sport.
Ah gotcha
In which case we agree with each other wholeheartedly!
Rugby
situation is worse there - Aus and NZ regularly cream off talent from the Pacific Islanders. Not that England (and Scotland and Wales) are above plucking a Kiwi or Saffa or two
Slight tangent
As far as national teams are concerned nationality is pretty fluid for everyone, and Australia is usually falling over itself to get someone naturalised in time for the olympics, just as England has done in the past (remember Zola Budd?). But what about 'clubs'.
For soccer in particular a situation like Chelsea (and others) where for some years they have been fielding an entire team (or close to it) of non-English players, let alone people who weren't from that 'club' or region. I'm sure someone will very quickly come up with a name or two of someone who grew up on the Kings Road and plays for them (I'm so woefully informed that I couldn't name anyone in the Chelsea side at present, let alone where they're from), but my point is that pretty much all professional sports teams are basically mercenaries following the next contract/paycheck these days, and this discussion strikes me as just arguing about which set of borders you may or may not choose to apply for certain games.
I totally agree with your point
watched the match on and off, but found it hard to build up much enthusiasm for England's victory. Both Trott and KP were born and brought up in SA and played all their early cricket there. Hard to feel much pride in their success. As for Morgan, seeing as I live in Northern Ireland I'm pretty miffed that every time Ireland get a decent player, England go and poach him. Morgan played for Ireland so I don't see how he can then suddenly become an England player.
As I understand it,
As I understand it, Pietersen qualifies for England by virtue of his English mother. This would also qualify him for the England football team, so cricket is no special case in that sense.
It would be so much simpler if the rule was simply that
you are only eligible to play for the country in which you were born.
That means
I could have only played cricket for America
:-<
Sporting nationality
It would be simpler, but it wouldn't tally with regular nationality regulations, AFAIK. If Kevin Pieterson qualifies for a UK passport because of his mother, then I believe he's qualified to play for any of the home nations. It would seem strange to allow him the passport but not the right to play for the country concerned.
But then you get the Zola Budd scenario
where a passport/citizenship is 'arranged' at short notice when required.
Absolutely
I'm not going to defend the whole queue-jumping thing. She had a legitimate right to a passport, but it should have gone through the regular channels and any criteria applied to "regular" applicants adhered to.
The simple solution isn't
The simple solution isn't always the right solution. By your logic, Joe Strummer is Turkish.
Yup.
Ireland
This is very much like the Ireland side under Jack Charlton. Did any of that team actually have an Irish accent?
From the 1994 squad, I
From the 1994 squad, I believe the following had Irish accents (feel free to make corrections)
Pat Bonner
Denis Irwin
Kevin Moran
Paul McGrath
Roy Keane
Steve Staunton
Gary Kelly
Alan Kernaghan
Tommy Coyne
Eddie McGoldrick
Ronnie Whelan
Alan McLoughlin
David Kelly
Alan Kelly
*coughs*
In some cases, they didn't even have any Irish ancestors!
(Yes, Tony Cascarino, I'm looking at you!)
His autobiography
is brilliant. Probably the best football biog I've read.
Yes, it is good
That's where he revealed he didn't really have an Irish Granny!
Two other cracking football books : Frank Worthington's "One Hump or Two?" and Eamonn Dunphy's "Only a Game?".
A pedant writes...
Nasser Hussain was born in India.
Pedantary accepted graciously,
he came here at 7 and was educated and learnt his cricket here. as I said it's a very thin line. I'm still happier with Nasser than I am with KP or Trott, I thinks it's the "adoption by covenience" that I have most trouble with.
That's the thing. You can't
That's the thing. You can't really do anything about 'adoption by convenience" without bringing in more stringent rules. And those stringest rules could stop those consider themselves English (or Irish, or French...etc) but happen to have been born elswhere, from representing their country.
The current system isn't perfect but it's the best we've got.
Part of the problem
is the rules governing overseas players in County Cricket. Think I'm right in saying that both Pietersen and Trott originally came to England to play county cricket. As they were both fairly young they wouldn't have been offered contracts as overseas players so went down the route of using their English parentage. Both then had to fulfil qualifying criteria, before they could represent England.
Though both have talked about the quota system as being a "push" factor from SA, I feel the main motivator initially was to get a county contract.
Morgan being poached from the Irish is understandable, in that Ireland don't play Test Cricket, but how are Ireland ever going to develop if England poach their better players?
It gets worse
There's a lad at Sussex, Ed Joyce, who played for England, was discarded, and now can't (I think) play for Ireland anymore. If Eoin Morgan, an exceptional talent, still played for Ireland he would be denied the world stage apart from the odd world cup every 4 years. Pietersen and Trott are using their passports and heritage but for some reason it grates more with Trott as Pietersen wholeheartedly rejected South African cricket at the age of 19 to play as an Englishman.
But Irish Cricket can't grow
if the best players are pinched to play for England.
At One Day International level Ireland are arguably 7th or 8th in the world and have got past the initial rounds (ie done as well as England) in the last World events at 20 and 50 overs. I can understand Joyce and Morgan wanting to play Test Cricket and that they can't currently achieve that for Ireland, but certainly in the case of Joyce I think he should be allowed to play again for Ireland.