The great thing about the England cricket team is that anyone can play for it.
Including… little old Scottish me. There have been a handful of Scottish players representing England and one, Mike Denness, even captained them in the Seventies.
My dear old Dad was no mean cricketer, playing at a high standard for his school St Mungo’s in Glasgow and had high hopes for me until I got bounced and collapsed to the ground in my first innings. After that I was just a fielder and last man in and didn’t bowl.
I improved on that with a couple of runs (my personal best) when I played with the Sri Lankan staff in the Maldives a couple of years ago before skinning my knees on the astro-turf pitch when I tried to make a dodgy run.
In all 107 players born outside of England have represented England including of the recently crowned World champions the captain Eoin Morgan (Ireland), opener Jason Roy (South Africa), all-rounder Ben Stokes (New Zealand) and fast bowler Jofra Archer (Barbados). That’s almost a sixth of the total.
Now every country does it, it’s the rules, I hear you scream. But it’s just England seem to do it more than most.
It’s a vain hope but wouldn’t it be good to get back to the days when playing for your country was reserved for people actually from the country rather than mercenaries?
And the Jofra Archer case is particularly hard to swallow.
I don’t even think much of his books.
For a far better cricketing experience visit his home country of Barbados. Let me take you there http://www.visitbarbados.org. And https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/rihanna-in-barbados/(opens in a new tab) and https://jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/my-kiss-with-rihanna/(opens in a new tab)
You want a Champagne super over. Then there’s a tease above on how I got on with the Sri Lankan cricketers in the Maldives. I’ll get my pads on and relive it yet… and transfer it on to the blog here.
MEET YOU AT THE WICKET
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