Can we have an English team consisting of English players ?

The day is not far when England would equal the Arab record [they fielded Sultan Zarawani as the captain in the 1996 World Cup, rest were from the Asian sub-continent] of fielding only one British -born in their side. It just looks like a mix and match of players from across the globe. This can be deemed appropriate for an upcoming nation, but definitely not for a Top cricketing nation.
 
:facepalm:rolleyes

Now where's the smiley that's shooting himself with a shotgun :p
 
almost all of englands team is already quite upper class, 8 of the players in the team that just played south africa were privately educated.

Ye Cook even more. Which is why to most black people like myself in England, who grew up in this era where the West Indies have been poor - don't it serious and rather play football or athletics.
 
that is a good point, the fall of the windies could have long term impact on how many black kids feel they have a shot of making it in cricket but it's also the opportunities out there.

Bell, broad, strauss, cook, new boys james taylor, hales all had access to far better facilities and encouragement than the plebs could ever get.

an england team representative of the country would of course include non-englishmen and ethnic minorities, that's part of the UKs culture. what's worrying is that the current team is a lot further away from being representative of the class structure in britain.

recently finding this out has put me right off slagging off footballers as being "scum" and the like, can't help but feeling I was being guilty of pure snobbery.
 
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There's a very true point made that the general reporting on footballers is anti-footballers. That football is one of the few places where someone who is provided with nothing can still earn considerably more than someone who is given everything. The press, who report on these same people, don't like it if the same person who is less educated than them snubs them or refuses to give them what they want. So, through a mixture of resentment and jealousy the press permanently paint footballers in a very poor light.

Beckham gets great press now, but he is so far removed from the boy he used to be as to pretty much be upper class these days :p As much as footballers are slated, it's worth baring in mind that there are 92 clubs in the football league alone. Of those they will have around 30 players on their books at least. That's around 3000 people who play football, and there is really only a very small minority of them who actually act like scum.

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Fact of the matter is, at grass roots level, I've seen fights occur at Sunday league level of football, cricket and rugby.
 
that is a good point, the fall of the windies could have long term impact on how many black kids feel they have a shot of making it in cricket but it's also the opportunities out there.

The Impact is already been done to be honest. I only started liking cricket due to a combo of watching and admiring Australian in the 90s, my old man being half/white was massive fan and uncles and cousins from Trinidad being cricket crazy. So i grew up in a cricket crazy household.

Most of blacks of Caribbean/African heritage i know who are under 25, totally view cricket as posh and just wouldn't get near it. So my era is gone.

The West Indies have to start dominating again and try and catch the new generation growing up.
 
Basketball and Soccer (football) have really destroyed the West Indian talent stream. Running has always been popular though, if only because it's a standard way to pass time there. You just race your mates all the time, because you can.
 
This can be deemed appropriate for an upcoming nation, but definitely not for a Top cricketing nation.

Who cares about all that when England are already No.1 in both Tests, ODIs and T20 WC winners. Every English cricket fan wants England to win whether they do it by fielding South Africans, Irish or players of Asian origin. :spy
 
Noticed the Kiwis are starting to have a bit of a South African tinge too with Wagner, Watling and van Wyk, and Aussie Dean Brownlie as well. Then you've got someone like Imran Tahir for South Africa too just to reverse it.

Lets also acknowledge that it's not just cricket. In this Olympics for example, there's been talk about Great Britain employing "plastic Brits", those who've been accepted under perhaps less stringent immigration rules because they are athletes. Australia has had a few in the past too especially in sports that aren't generally taken up here in Australia eg. badminton, tae kwon do, shooting etc. It's part of being an attractive country to live in, immigrants will come your way.
 
Who cares about all that when England are already No.1 in both Tests, ODIs and T20 WC winners. Every English cricket fan wants England to win whether they do it by fielding South Africans, Irish or players of Asian origin. :spy

It would have been so much better had the stand-off between Gayle-Pollard and the WICB nt ended, they might have ended up playing for our nation instead. :p
 
Noticed the Kiwis are starting to have a bit of a South African tinge too with Wagner, Watling and van Wyk, and Aussie Dean Brownlie as well. Then you've got someone like Imran Tahir for South Africa too just to reverse it.

Lets also acknowledge that it's not just cricket. In this Olympics for example, there's been talk about Great Britain employing "plastic Brits", those who've been accepted under perhaps less stringent immigration rules because they are athletes. Australia has had a few in the past too especially in sports that aren't generally taken up here in Australia eg. badminton, tae kwon do, shooting etc. It's part of being an attractive country to live in, immigrants will come your way.

yeah, it's a really difficult thing to police, probably saying "it's just not cricket" sums it up perfectly. it's something you have to judge on a case by case basis.

I have sympathy with the irish players that play for england, it gives them a chance to persue a full career that they'd otherwise been denied through accident of birth. also, in the cases of british/australian educated foreign born guys like strauss, symonds, prior, henriques (i know he's not an international but just someone that came to mind) that's cool too.

where it gets iffy is the cases like trott and tahir (and there's dozens of cases in other sports). it's one of the reasons twenty20 leagues are quite good though, as they seem to be a form of domestic cricket that has as much financial rewards as national so it lets people make their worth rather than just whatever their board designates them.
 
Countries want success, players want success.

What some people on here really can't grasp is how the individuals feel. I know someone who considers herself British and would take offence if you argue whether she is or not.

Sportsmen might choose who to represent and "compromise" their identity as it were, but some of those England players who were not born in England still consider themselves English.

Funny how it has only become a stick to beat England with now we're doing well, wasn't (to the same extent) when our team had the likes of Graeme Hick, Syd Lawrence, Andy Caddick, Phil DeFreitas, Martin McCague, Gavin Hamilton, Allan Lamb, Robin Smith, Dougie Brown, Dermot Reeve, Devon Malcolm, Min Patel etc in it..................

It's not like it's new, it's just some have a stick up their behind about it.
 
As I've said before I always assume everyone is the picture in their avatar.
You saying that you're not blue?
 

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