Ballance, Rankin Anglicised

[jaybro]

@ Contra

Yeah the Kolpak ruling is law but is telling players if they want to play County cricket they can't represent their Country of origin law ??? No mate it's just greedy pommies taking advantage of a favourable situation, the ECB will argue that they're just making sure the County sides don't get full of overseas players so England have less players to choose from but it's just convenient that they pick up the very talented players along the way. How many County teams are there ?? 18 surely there is enough players for England to choose from without making these players forfeit their right to represent their home land ???

Mate there are a number of cases when players have been forced to choose between County or Country and Rankin is just one of them

As for NewZealand most players who head over there from afar are doing this because they're not good enough to represent their homeland ....

How well has this worked for them ??? Lets compare the England's foreign players from NewZealand's and you tellme who you would rather have ....

K.Pietersen or Grant Elliot ??
Matt Prior or Kruger Van Wyk or Luke Ronchi ??
Gary Ballance or Colin DeGrandhomme ??
Eoin Morgan or Dean Brownlie ??
Boyd Rankin or Niel Wagner ??

These Kiwi converts are all second rate and have given NewZealand sencond rate results, they should invest more time and experience in young players like Mitchell McClenaghan, Munro, Anderson and co

[jaybro]

Nobody was "poached". Rankin retired from Ireland cricket last summer of his own accord so that he could represent England. Had he been "poached" (which no player is, by any country) he would've played immediately rather than waiting a year to make his England senior debut. He shouldn't be in the side but that has nothing to do with his nationality.

Don't players have to serve a period of time between representing different nations ????

representing different nations I feel takes away so much that appeals to people about International sport ...... How often to players change 'alligances' in Football ( soccer ) or Tennis ???

[samedwards]

I don't think England selection policy is ideal either but it's not a conscious effort on the part of England selectors to pick overseas-born players, or to ruin Associate nations. The job of the England selectors is to select the best side available to them (in this case, without selecting Test regulars) and Ballance - who's recognised by most people are one of the best prospects on the county circuit - and Rankin are in it because rightly or wrongly, they believe them to be good enough and deserving of a place in the team.

I would love to believe that. I wouldn't have minded if Rankin had been playing T20s and was in top form, but the fact is he came off a long injury layoff only last month, and has rarely played T20s. So I am completely baffled by the decision to select him, and the only reason I can think of is to make him ineligible to the Irish, so that he doesn't get any second thoughts about his retirement.

Don't players have to serve a period of time between representing different nations ????

representing different nations I feel takes away so much that appeals to people about International sport ...... How often to players change 'alligances' in Football ( soccer ) or Tennis ???

Well, that is another classic case of ICC hypocrisy. Players from Full Nations have to wait 4 years to play for the Associates, but the Associate players can jump ship any time. So if Morgan or Ramkin are disposed off tomorrow, they wouldn't be able to play for the Irish till 2018. Whereas a Paul Stirling or a George Dockrell can play for the 3 Lions even today.

[Contra]

Football and tennis are entirely different cases, because the international games in them don't work in the same way as cricket does. A more appropriate comparison would be rugby, a sport in which plenty of players switch national teams.

If you'd bothered to read my original post, you'd see that the contractual thing with Warwickshire was over fitness issues surrounding an already injury-prone player playing that amount of cricket. Rankin said it himself, along with how he wants to play at the highest level he possibly can and that he doesn't see Ireland playing Test cricket in his playing career. The situation isn't actually a million miles away from that of Murray Goodwin, who grew up in Australia and came through the Western Australia age group teams before fucking off back to Zimbabwe when he got a chance to play internationals for them. So it's not "greedy pommies taking advantage", it's an employer concerned that their employee won't be fit enough to do the job that he's being paid to do. As far as players being forced to choose between county or country, as I've repeatedly said, they're within their rights to refuse. Maybe if the countries they played for made it more financially viable to play for them than to play county cricket it might not be an issue.

[jaybro]

If Warwickshire were concerned that Rankin playing a few ODI's here and there for Ireland would be too much of a work load then what will they think about once he starts playing 4 match test series for England ????

And if your being told by your county team you have to choose between the money of playing county cricket or representing your home nation that is being held to ransome plain and simple mate just admit it, we're not saying England are breaking any rules so I dont know why you can't accept it. Most players can't earn that sort of money playing at home so they are attracted to County Cricket but this shouldn't mean they have to forfeit their right to represent their home land ..... I feel Im repeating myself ???

As for Goodwin atleast he had Zimbo hertiage wasn't he bron in Zimbabwe ?? Unlike *ietersen, prior, Morgan, Rankin, Ballance and the rest of them.

[Contra]

I'm not going to accept something that isn't true. And you're not the only one who feels like they're repeating themselves.

The issue was with him appearing for Ireland, Warwickshire and the England Lions at the same time. He's said himself that he had aspirations to play for England because that was his best chance of playing Test cricket, so he was obviously going to favour the Lions over Ireland if he had to choose between the two. As far as the money thing goes, I don't know what you think being held to ransom is but it's not that. It's not the fault of the counties or the ECB that playing for a county is a better financial option than playing for certain countries, they have offered the players a choice and they can choose to accept it or to not accept it.

The point I was trying to make with Goodwin was that like Rankin and Ballance, he was offered (and took) an opportunity to do something that had he stayed in Australia, he might not have been able to do. But he didn't actually play in Zimbabwe until he was offered the chance to represent them in internationals, whereas Rankin and Ballance have both been playing county cricket since they were teenagers. Ballance presumably opted for England over Zimbabwe because he knew that he would be paid in England.

As far as heritage goes, you'll find that just about all of England's overseas-born players have always held British passports (Boyd Rankin is from Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom), so actually they do have the correct heritage. The only exception I can think of is Jade Dernbach, who came to England as a child much like Andy Flower came to Zimbabwe as a child (I notice nobody's taken exception to this).

[samedwards]

Lets just say that the ICC has bungled up the situation with their bizarre eligibility rules, and the ECB has taken advantage of it, like any other Full Member board would have done.

[jaybro]

@ Contra

Just answer yes or no

Do England benefit from holding their 1st class season whilst all other nations are in offseason ??

Do England benefit from overseas players choosing county cricket over representing their home nations ( because the ECB won't allow them to do both ) ??

Do England benefit from other nations not being able to offer their players a decent wage ??

Do England benefit from Irish, South African and Zimbabwean players who are disillusioned with their home land or are looking to play test cricket choosing to play for England because they feel they are the right due to their family heritage ??

If you bothered to read my original post these were the points I brought up !!!!

[foreignfield]

I see Ashes' fever has gripped ZCF
(excluding sameedwards here, who is clearly coming from an Irish angle)

Will Zimbabwe ever win the Ashes?

[Contra]

I didn't answer because what you're doing is you're trying to get simple answers for complicated questions because you think they'll prove your point. You're trying to call foul because of the circumstances in which English cricket is held, which is just absurd. England does not prevent players from playing for their "home countries"; the county circuit is full of players who turn out for Ireland, the Netherlands, Scotland, whoever. They benefit from overseas-born players no more than Australia did when Kepler Wessels turned his back on South African cricket, or South Africa did from Imran Tahir, or New Zealand do with their players from South Africa, Australia and Zimbabwe. And as far as the seasons go, what do you expect them to do? Play in the freezing rain and snow?

You obviously have a thing about England cricket, because you referred to your hatred of it in other posts. Your reasons for that are your own - maybe you can't handle the fact that they beat Australia now - but you can't then accuse them of cheating and not playing by the rules without any real justification other than you don't like them.

Footnote - For the record, players switching nationalities is actually very common in football, particularly with Poles playing for Germany, and French-born players representing west and north African countries and vice versa.