Further notice the England born players are not coming through.

[Richard]

FTR, Dimitri Mascarenhas (as opposed to Mark [RIP] Mascarenhas) is of Australian extraction, not Asian.

Has a proper Greek-Russian name though.

 

[SJS]

FTR, Dimitri Mascarenhas (as opposed to Mark [RIP] Mascarenhas) is of Australian extraction, not Asian.

Has a proper Greek-Russian name though.

I thought he was Sri Lankan. Was brought up in Australia.

 

[King Pietersen]

Indeed. Mascarenhas' link with Sri Lanka.

 

[Richard]

Yup, a Lankan-Australian with names comprising some of India, Greece and Russia. And who ended-up playing for England.

Truly strange stuff.

 

[Aritro]

All the Sri Lankans who moved to Australia during that era were of Burgher stock, so it's no surprise his background's such a mish-mash.

I know a couple of Sri Lankan Burgher lads called Dimitri FWIW, although it's a rather bizzare deviation from the Dutch/Portugese/British names you'd normally expect them to have.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It should be noted Mascarenhas's real first name is Adrian and he was born in Pinner, which is about as English as you can get short of a bowler hat and a bulldog.

 

[Goughy]

Yup, a Lankan-Australian with names comprising some of India, Greece and Russia. And who ended-up playing for England.

Truly strange stuff.

Hold on! What part of his name is Greek? Id put money on the Mascarenhas name being Portuguese which would fit well with Sri Lankan history.

 

[Jungle Jumbo]

Hold on! What part of his name is Greek? Id put money on the Mascarenhas name being Portuguese which would fit well with Sri Lankan history.

Yeah, just googled it, it's Portuguese. His forename certainly more Greek than his surname.

 

[Furball]

There is also

1. Mascarenhas
2. Shahzad
3. Rashid
4. Kabir
5. Ramprakash
6. Patel and
7. Solanki

Making it 14 out of a pool of 43.



Its not worrying for me

In fact I agree with you. Its a good thing.

I am just explaining the phenomenon and the first reaction of almost all of the people I have discussed this matter with during my visits to England. They all seem to find the system of "outsiders' being brought in as being detrimental to the domestic cricket by discouraging the local lads.

My point is just that the fault does not lie with the policy change in County cricket but the overall turning away of the white child (if you please) from the game. I think the Asian child has just filled in a need of the system and it is good for English cricket as you too seem to say.

I am just stating that if there is any worry (by the ethnic English) about the game "dying" as it were, they must try and understand, and address if possible, the reasons for the lack of interest (relatively speaking) of the ethnic British boy in the game. I do not profess to know the reasons myself

Guys like Shazad, Mahmood and Bopara are local lads though, they just happen to have a different skin colour.

 

[Furball]

There was a very interesting article on the problems of South Africans in English cricket on the BBC site some months back.

The rise of the English South Africans

Quoting Neil Manthrope, the writer says...

"The reality is cricket at school and club level in South Africa is still active and strong, whereas every time I come to England I see more and more clubs close, and more schools where the game is no longer played. The game there is certainly in decline."

It is a depressing view which the England and Wales Cricket Board will dispute, as they continue to talk of their commitment to delivering funds to the grass-roots of the game.

But the irony is that because of the apparent lack of high-class homegrown players, there are more places at the counties for immigrant South Africans - or imports from anywhere else, provided they meet the increasingly complicated entry criteria.

These players, in turn, help raise the standard of county cricket - despite the ECB's reservations - and as a result the counties should eventually deliver better-prepared candidates for the international game.

So just remember that when Pietersen, Trott and Kieswetter celebrate winning the World Cup in 2015.​

It is very interesting to read the comments after the article was published online. Strong feelings against the playing of those not born and brought up in England.

The schools thing is cultural. School sport in the UK, wrongly, has pretty much no prestige.

The UK sports system should follow the US model.

 

[Richard]

Hold on! What part of his name is Greek? Id put money on the Mascarenhas name being Portuguese which would fit well with Sri Lankan history.

Mascarenhas has certainly always sounded Greek to me. I'm not saying his family has any Greek history or anything, but it's a name which has always sounded Greek to me.

The far-more-famous Mascarenhas, Mark (RIP), was of course an Indian from Bangalore whose background I don't know anything of.

 

[Richard]

Yeah, just googled it, it's Portuguese. His forename certainly more Greek than his surname.

Obviously Adrian is a pretty British name, and Dimitri is Russian as they come. Not sure what either of them have Greek in them TBH.

 

[Richard]

Guys like Shazad, Mahmood and Bopara are local lads though, they just happen to have a different skin colour.

Their names far more than their skin colour identify them as "of Asian extraction" TBH. I guess it's likely that their parents lived in India\Pakistan for not a little part of their lives.

It doesn't matter, of course, because as long as someone has grown-up in Britain they're British to my mind, but there are countless subcultures in Britain.

 

[SJS]

Their names far more than their skin colour identify them as "of Asian extraction" TBH. I guess it's likely that their parents lived in India\Pakistan for not a little part of their lives.

It doesn't matter, of course, because as long as someone has grown-up in Britain they're British to my mind, but there are countless subcultures in Britain.

I stopped commenting on this because I am aware how quickly this thing can get out of hand into a "cultural/racist" nonsense which is far from what my intention was when I first posted on this.

I would still like to clarify, one last time, what I was saying ... although it is difficult to get into some places where corners are well defined (and people not just stay in their own but paint others into the opposite ones too), only two colours exist without even shades of grey in between, and the eye-pieces can't see anything in anyother hue.

Every country has its ethnic stock of one (mostly) or two (rarely more) races. India has the Aryans and the Dravidians, Sri Lanka the Tamilians and Sinhalese wings of the Dravidians and so on. If these form the majority of thge population (as they often do) then they also represent the largest talent pool for sports. Of course there are cases where it is different but not many.

So an Indian side would normally have "ethnic" Indians (the use of the ultra-sensitive word ethnic is what caused the problem to start with but I hardly knew what was coming in response) as the majority in all their sporting ventures though there would be the odd case where, for example, you could see a 2-3 Parsees in the team even though they are a miniscule minority in India. It was understandable in the early days of the game in the country when they were the most enthusiastic, the best organised and probably the most affluent community to take to the game resulting in the first Indian/Parsee team to tour England in 1886. They continued to dominate the cricket and were a force. More Indians started playing the game as it spread from shore to shore and we had a pan-Indian sport. To start with Bombay, Madras and Central India dominated the game but it was only when the North started looking beyond field hockey that the national team started looking more and more a truly representative one did our over all place in world cricket started improving.

Not because the North Indians, and the Biharis etc, were better than the others but just because the talent pool got larger and larger. Today with a billion people with the majority of youngsters devoted to the game we are in a very good position in regard to supply from the "supply chain" as it were. Slightly more visionary policies by the administrators would expedite the process but we are in a good way.

Now suppose. we were to start having more and more Parsees again playing the game and they started making up more and more of the numbers in the India national sides. The point to worry then, if someone did bring it up as I did, would not be because we consider the Parsees less Indian or think that the ethnicity by itself was the issue. No. The worrying bit would be the legitimate query whether the talent pool was getting smaller.

Of course it could be debated that it wasn't or that even a smaller talent pool wasn't a source of worry but to twist the query itself and make the point of ethnicity the main argument is bizarre and convoluted to put it mildly.

PS. Maybe the Parsees is not the best and exact example but the only one I could take from history. Its possible that if and when India becomes an economic super-power we may have "reverse" immigration and have a sizeable "white-minority (lynch me on the use of that term again). Then after a generation or two they started dominating the Indian school, university and national teams in spite of their relatively small demographic size, some idiot , like yours truly, may worry about what happened to the "ethnic Indian" cricketing pool and one expects, not without much I am afraid, that an idiot and a false prophet are the milder criticisms he will face.

 

[SJS]

Coming back to England, one keeps hearing, lets stick to the South African imports for harmony sake, that the English born are having their possibilities reduced because of the influx of 'foreign born' (and bred) mercenaries. One needs to ask whether the problem is not one also in reverse.

Are the 'foreigners' denying spots to the locals or are they filling up the spots increasingly getting vacated.

 

[wpdavid]

Coming back to England, one keeps hearing, lets stick to the South African imports for harmony sake, that the English born are having their possibilities reduced because of the influx of 'foreign born' (and bred) mercenaries. One needs to ask whether the problem is not one also in reverse.

Are the 'foreigners' denying spots to the locals or are they filling up the spots increasingly getting vacated.

I don't have a definitive answer to that, but I would suggest that there must be at least some of the former. Simply because signing an experienced Saffer will provide a quicker solution than bringing few a younger and less experienced player from your own ranks. It's not really comparing like with like - of course a guy with lots of FC experience will be better than a 20 year old finding his way in the game.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Genetically I think Asians are allot smaller and physically weaker then what South Africans, Australians and Englishmen are and that's why they produce better performers then what Asians do despite having a smaller population. However because India has a massive population, it sort've evens things up, but because there aren't as many subcontient people in Australia and England, that's why you rarely, if ever see any decent subcontient cricketers come out of Australia or England. Not trying to be racist and I'm sorry if I offend anyone, but that's just the way I see it.

 

[King Pietersen]

Wow, just, wow. Didn't think it was possible, but Ben, you've reached a new low.

 

[wfdu_ben91]

Wow, just, wow. Didn't think it was possible, but Ben, you've reached a new low.

So what's your genius explanation behind the lack of International success from Aussie-English Asians? Why do South African English prosper but not Asian English?

 

[King Pietersen]

First off, Asian communties, although increasing, are still a minority group in England, which I think is a key point. There are players of Asian heritage coming through. Players like Nasser Hussain, Monty Panesar, Ravi Bopara, Samit Patel, Sajid Mahmood and a few others have had International success, no matter how brief. I think it's very much co-incidence that there have been very few world class players of Asian heritage playing for England and Australia. It's the same with black cricketers for England, there hadn't been a black-English Test cricketer for many years (until Carberry), just down to co-incidence as opposed to some far-fetched genetic issue. If it were a matter of Asian players just not being good enough due to some genetic issue, then you wouldn't see some of the worlds best players playing for India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, and they just wouldn't be able to compete with the 'taller and physically stronger' Englishmen, South Africans and Australians.