What shoul SA do when their ENG exports come running back to SA?

[Goughy]

My experience is not so pleasant on these matters and here is what I have to say.

I am a saffa married to a Norwegian and I find most of europe has a two faced policy when it comes to immigration. I have now been married for 3 years to her and due to the nature of her work, we are required to travel abroad regularly. I am not allowed to live in Norway freely unless i prove every single time that I am married to her, despite having gone through the same visa process 3 times alread. Yet, I still get treated like a new applicant each time and I only see myself getting citizenship in 10 years time, despit by then I would have been married for 10 years. Now why is it so easy for sportd people to get such rights for the sake of playing a sport but so difficult for other in a more needing situation to get the same rights? The other thing is that half of the population playing cricket in Aus, NZ and SA have roots in Europe and I am sure that all of them could legally get a Europian passport of some sort and most probably that passport would be british. What would then happen if all the cricket players from these countries chose to represent Eng as apposed to theri country of birth? The reason why this mostly affect SA is because
1)We now have the ability to travel to the UK (a right denied to us for many years due to sanctions)
2)Quotas
3)Many people find the grass is greener in other countries due to some deeper issues I will not discuss here.

I guess the only statement I was trying to make is from a point of view of the sport and not the players. If this continues for SA then SA will lose fans to the game and risk a decrease in attracting young fans to the sport.

So again, why is the ICC who are trying to salvage Test match cricket, allowing some countries to gain the talenst from development in other countries and allowing countries with more money to woo more players of quality to their team?

Imagine if FIFA allowed countries to handpick/pay for better talents to represent a country as apposed to mandating that players must play for their countries of birth?

Your issues (and good luck with them btw) are not relevant to the current SA player debate.

You say it would take 10 years for you to become a citizen and cricketers have it easier just because they are sportsmen. That is wrong. KP and Trott were already British citizens. They are not looking to 'back-door' but merely live and work in a country they have every right to as citizens.

I guess you dont have a Euro passport and that makes things more difficult for you. That is precisely why you shouldnt take issue with KP and Trott. These are not guys without links to the UK who are being let in for financial and performance reasons. They are British and as such need to be treated as such. If they were not already British then their path would have been far more difficult. It is not that the England team is just taking anyone. Just those that want to and already have the right.

RE: FIFA- I suggest you read the requiements. Soccer has the loosest (sp?) system imaginable. There is no rule that a player has to play for the country of their birth and nations hand pick talent all the time. In fact far more so than in Cricket.

 

[GIMH]

Couldn't possibly agree any more with the above post. Well said Goughy.

 

[social]

Judging by recent performances, select them!

 

[Jono]

Where someone came from is so much less important than where they choose to be.

Lovely. Terrific line

 

[Furball]

RE: FIFA- I suggest you read the requiements. Soccer has the loosest (sp?) system imaginable. There is no rule that a player has to play for the country of their birth and nations hand pick talent all the time. In fact far more so than in Cricket.

FIFA's requirements aren't loose. FIFA requires players to be citizens of the country they're representing.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Do we have to like that Trott now plays for England?

Asks The Guardian's Barney Ronay

A witty and knowing defence of the English sport fan's "little Englander" tendancies.

What he says is, if not right because that's not the point he's making, then something I can recognise in myself. Ultimately sport is about the emotional response it engenders and it is hard to justify this logically or fairly. Some players one warms to, for whatever reason, and some are never quite clutched to the collective bosom. Ronay puts it much better than I could:

Trott playing for England still feels, if not exactly wrong, then strangely deflating. Watching the match yesterday I realised, with a sense of creeping shame, that I could picture three possible outcomes: 1) England win; 2) England lose; 3) England win with Trott scoring the runs. And that while 3 was better than 2, it was still a little bit short of being as good as 1.

This isn't fair, of course. I might try to justify it with some vague talk about sporting provenance and being native to wherever you got your cricketing education; but this can be easily undermined by questions about exactly where you draw your pathetically arbitrary line, so that the only person who ends up being eligible to play for England is Ray Illingworth in a Morris dancing outfit drinking a yard of Pot Noodle through a John Betjeman mask. Instead, it's a purely emotional response. But then sport is an emotional business and the reasons for caring about it at all don't often hold up to scrutiny

 

[wpdavid]

Asks The Guardian's Barney Ronay

A witty and knowing defence of the English sport fan's "little Englander" tendancies.

What he says is, if not right because that's not the point he's making, then something I can recognise in myself. Ultimately sport is about the emotional response it engenders and it is hard to justify this logically or fairly. Some players one warms to, for whatever reason, and some are never quite clutched to the collective bosom. Ronay puts it much better than I could:

Trott playing for England still feels, if not exactly wrong, then strangely deflating. Watching the match yesterday I realised, with a sense of creeping shame, that I could picture three possible outcomes: 1) England win; 2) England lose; 3) England win with Trott scoring the runs. And that while 3 was better than 2, it was still a little bit short of being as good as 1.

This isn't fair, of course. I might try to justify it with some vague talk about sporting provenance and being native to wherever you got your cricketing education; but this can be easily undermined by questions about exactly where you draw your pathetically arbitrary line, so that the only person who ends up being eligible to play for England is Ray Illingworth in a Morris dancing outfit drinking a yard of Pot Noodle through a John Betjeman mask. Instead, it's a purely emotional response. But then sport is an emotional business and the reasons for caring about it at all don't often hold up to scrutiny

Yeah, I particularly enjoyed the thought of Illy doing a spot of morris dancing.

I'm pretty two-faced about it, tbh. In theory, I'm against Trott and KP changing allegiance as a career move. In practice, I'm more than happy to see them secure the ashes for us in consecutive home series.
To use Ronay's analogy, an ashes win due to a SA batter > an ashes loss with a unquestionably English XI.

I don't know how far my pragmatism will go though. Give the lack of talent coming through the English system - or at least, the inability of said talent to mature into genuinely test class players - the number of disaffected saffers playing for us is only likely to increase, which does make a mockery of the whole thing imo. Ronay's point about an emotional respose is well made. Except that I'd turn it around and ask to which country the likes of KP and Trott are most likely to have an emotional allegiance, whatever the qualification rules might say.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Yeah, I particularly enjoyed the thought of Illy doing a spot of morris dancing.

I'm pretty two-faced about it, tbh. In theory, I'm against Trott and KP changing allegiance as a career move. In practice, I'm more than happy to see them secure the ashes for us in consecutive home series.
To use Ronay's analogy, an ashes win due to a SA batter > an ashes loss with a unquestionably English XI.

I don't know how far my pragmatism will go though. Give the lack of talent coming through the English system - or at least, the inability of said talent to mature into genuinely test class players - the number of disaffected saffers playing for us is only likely to increase, which does make a mockery of the whole thing imo. Ronay's point about an emotional respose is well made. Except that I'd turn it around and ask to which country the likes of KP and Trott are most likely to have an emotional allegiance, whatever the qualification rules might say.

I feel pretty much the same. Pietersen and Trott are being picked on merit and the odd one or two foreign-raised players I'll happily turn a blind eye to (reminding myself that German mercenaries helped us win Waterloo, after all), but if these start to become a majority are we really following a quote-unquote "English" national team anymore?

 

[wpdavid]

I feel pretty much the same. Pietersen and Trott are being picked on merit and the odd one or two foreign-raised players I'll happily turn a blind eye to (reminding myself that German mercenaries helped us win Waterloo, after all), but if these start to become a majority are we really following a quote-unquote "English" national team anymore?

btw what's the reason for featuring Gatt's nose-job?

 

[BoyBrumby]

btw what's the reason for featuring Gatt's nose-job?

For no other reason than I find it an amusing pic, really. I suppose it sort of sums up England versus the Windies in the 80s if I were to intellectualise it. Vaguely remember a hapless journo asking Gatt where exactly the ball hit him too (might've featured in a telly ad a while back?), which always raises a chuckle.

 

[longtom]

I don't know. If one wants international cricket a "free for all" system, like, let's say, the Premier league, I would feel uncomfortable. It would and does make international cricket a mockery imo.

All it does is make a rich country good a poor country bad. Imagine all good Indian, Pakistani, Australian, West Indian and South African (and don't forget the Irish...) now go to play for England because they were all at some or other time colonised by them? That would be real rubbish and to an extent it is. All of the emerging countries like South Africa, India, Pak etc than have to play with what would be essentially the A team.

Coming back to England - they should have the strongest team in the world given the fact that they have a huge international pool to choose from. Why they are not I leave to people on the board who know English cricket better than me....

I know this is not a popular view around here and I am probably an unashamed dreamer, because money talks - everywhere.

But than I always was a sucker for the underdogs....

 

[Matt79]

Saffies don't play for England because they were once colonised by them. They do so because they can earn a better living doing so. That's not true of Indian or Australian batsmen I'd say. And if all the WI, SL, and SA players decamped to England, they wouldn't ALL make a better living. Guys like Pietersen moved because of a perceived lack of opportunity. If the entire SA FC player roster had moved to England, there would be plenty of opportunities for the next Pietersen to play. Not saying that's a good thing, just that there would come a time where it would become counterproductive. Believe it or not, some English players are better than some South Africans, and some players will back themselves to make it in their home country.

Only two points really need to be made by the question posed in this thread:
1) It assumes that at some stage the exports WILL come running back, which might be rather fraught.
2) If SA want to stop it happening, they should make SA a more attractive place to play cricket for a living.

 

[longtom]

2) If SA want to stop it happening, they should make SA a more attractive place to play cricket for a living.

What would you suggest for a 3rd world country like SA to do? Are you South African or are you reasonable familiar with South Africa and its political as well as economical realities?

If yes, I would love to hear what you would suggest!

 

[Matt79]

Better pay, and a system that provides assistance and encouragement to previously disadvantaged categories to play cricket without discriminating against others.

 

[longtom]

Better pay,

With money that comes from where?

and a system that provides assistance and encouragement to previously disadvantaged categories to play cricket without discriminating against others.

I like that statement. You would do that without resorting to quotas?

How would you provide assistance previously disadvantaged people? Facilities and trained personnel would surely be necessary. That does cost money again....it's a bit of a merry-go-round, isn't it?

 

[Matt79]

Sure, and I'm not pretending it would be easy. But its the only way the problem will go away. Given some of the more outlandish suggestions that some here have felt worth trying to impose to address the situation, I don't think they're terrible ideas.

I'd be guided by those who know more intimately the workings of SA cricket at a domestic level, but I think quotas if imposed should exist only up to the grade or sub-county level, but not at FC or international. And as you say, positive assistance in terms of improved access and coaching, is a better option than quotas in isolation.

You're quite right about saying that money doesn't grow on trees to both pay players well AND provide better training facilities and access, but SA's current success as a cricketing nation suggests there is already some level of basic infrastructure - at the very least - in place. So they're coming from a better place than say a WIs or a Bangers. While it's easy to say, CSA are better exploring options to extract more money from the national team's activities, to be plowed back into the domestic cricket scene, rather than getting fixated on pursuing the exports (not that they seem to be, but that's what some apparently want). If they are able to do that, then this particular problem will ease.

Alas, there's obviously a whole other set of issues that likely affect some player's desire to remain in SA, which are the government's responsibility, but may well be beyond their capability.

 

[Langeveldt]

I certainly don't think any less of someone for switching allegiances nor bear animosity to one who should do so, but I do think that any allegiance switch should be long-term before someone is allowed to play international sport for where they've chosen to be. Personally I'd have a residence qualification of 10 years before someone is allowed to play top-level sport - which basically rules-out most people from having extended careers in cricket if they've not been brought-up somewhere.

"Being from" somewhere is, to me, what international sport is about; the fact that you have to be qualified and cannot just be signed whenever you fancy as you can at club level.

Not often a forum member agrees with Richard 100%, but this.. If I was good enough to play for SA I certainly don't think I should be given the right to do so.. I have played provincial sport here before, but there definitely should be a qualification for the national side that represents a seriously long time spent in that country

 

[Richard]

Sure, and I'm not pretending it would be easy.

I honestly don't believe it's possible. Some forces you cannot fight regardless of how hard you try. It's the same reason cricket is never, barring something quite extraordinary (and totally out of the hands of the cricket fraturnity) going to be anything other than a minority sport in the UK.

You can only control the controllables, and England being a better place to play cricket than SA currently is not something SA have any power at all to change the way I see it.

 

[Briony]

England is obviously also a better place to live than SA which is something that CSA can't control.

 

[longtom]

England is obviously also a better place to live than SA which is something that CSA can't control.

I beg to differ - strongly!!! Also I haven't lived in England before I lived in Central Europe and visited the UK regularly.

What would one possibly find better in England than in South Africa?

Well - if quality of life is depended on how much money you earn, you might have a point. Apart from that....way of the mark.