Spotting the Englishman

March 5th 2010, Chittagong. England take to the field against Bangladesh following Craig Kieswetter's ton in England's first innings of 284, surveying the field I find myself playing an all too familiar game... spot the Englishman.

Out of the England XI fielded that day, four of them were not playing for their countries. Eoin Morgan, Craig Kieswetter, Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior are the newest generation of English foreign imports into the international team. Three South African's and an Irishman playing for England virtue of an English passport, call me cynical, but that's just not right.

International cricket is supposed to be about the best players from each country competing against one and other for their national pride. Are the likes of Kieswetter and Johnathan Trott really playing for that? Or more likely are they playing for England so that they themselves can play at the highest level.

The English team is the ideal platform to achieve this no doubt due to the apparent lack of class home grown cricketers being produced from the county system. The list of cricketers who've taken this route to the pinnacle of the professional game is ridiculous, I would cobble together a list but I don't have the time and it's probably an embarrassment to the English game... 

I cannot comprehend just how a cricketer can turn his back on his homeland. Some of course have very clear reasons like Pietersen who says that he was disenchanted by South Africa's racial quota system, or Andrew Strauss who was only six when he moved to the UK. But Trott? Kieswetter? Tim Ambrose from Australia? It's pure ambition, verging on whole hearted selfishness.

"Where am I more likely to play international cricket?"

And lets not forget that this is not just England. Too a lesser extent the international cricketing import trade has been evident and is still evident in other national teams. Brendan Nash, the Australian first-class cricketer playing for the West Indies is the most obvious example. Clearly a West Indian through and through.

Above all though, the worst cases in my opinion are those cricketers who play for more than one nation. Eoin Morgan for example, played a large number of ODI's for Ireland before turning his back on Ireland to play at a higher level for England. He must be proud to be Irish.

One of the most famous examples of players doing this is Kepler Wessels, the South African batsman who played 24 tests for Australia before returning to play for South Africa upon their re-admission into the international cricket arena in the early 1990's.

There is not a single person who can look at that and say he was playing for Australia because that is where his heart lied... he was just using them for his own career because his country wasn't able to give him the career he wanted. This though is only an assumption made from looking at the situation, the real motives are beyond me.

Simply it appears people are just not as proud represent their country as maybe they once were.

But, I cannot fail to acknowledge that the world we live in is more and more diverse, national identity is becoming ever more blurry and so to be honest I predict this trend is not going to end any time soon. Though as I write this, Steve Finn and Michael Carberry are debuting for England in Bangladesh which can only be a good sign.