Can SA Do Anything To Stop The Exodus
If England play Craig Kieswetter and Matt Prior against Bangladesh then England will have up to 4 South African born players in the team. It would be 5, but Straussy needed a rest....
This number is insane.
Even more mind boggling is the number of South African players plying their trade as Kolpaks. Players with inter national caps. Players such as Jacques Rudolph. Still only 28 and with 35 test caps behind him. Another few years and he might start turning out with the three lions on his shirt!
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And surely the ECB risk becoming a joke then they should not allow this to continue. Especially if they face South Africa again. The Englishman will be outnumbered by 16:5, potentially more if any of the match officials are from South Africa.
At first glance South Africa seems like the ideal place to grow up and learn your trade as a cricketer. Nice weather, stunning beaches and beautiful girls are all at your grasp. So what could be making these players want to jump ship with such alarming regularity? And what can the SA cricket board try to do to stop this?
One solution could be to try and encourage franchises to raise the wages of their young cricketers, as in South Africa you need to have money to live safely and comfortable.
Another thing could be to dispel the rumour that if your white, you dont stand a chance. This cannot be true. We have seen just as many white players coming through and making debuts as Black ones. Van De Merwe, Kuhn and McLaren are examples of this.
Even Kieswetter himself said that this was not the reason he has decided to become English. The case of Kieswetter is particularly, well, wrong. The captain of his native country, Graeme Smith, personally asked Kieswetter to stay South African, and then have a starting place in the national side when Boucher retires. In Both codes.
So what could it be?
Sheer greediness? A fear of 'reverse discrimination'?
What ever it is, I think that the ICC has to react, otherwise England might as well be renamed South Africa A.
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