When Home Is Away From Home

By RICHARD LORD

Stuart Meaker is a surprise name in England's squad for the series of five one-day international matches and one Twenty20 international against India that begins in Hyderabad on Friday—but his place of birth makes him seem an almost natural choice.

Fast bowler Meaker, 22 years old, was born in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa—as was fellow squad member Kevin Pietersen. They're joined by Craig Kieswetter and Jade Dernbach of Johannesburg and Jonathan Trott of Cape Town. When England next play tests, against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates in January, the squad will welcome Matt Prior and captain Andrew Strauss (both of Johannesburg). And currently missing through injury is Eoin Morgan, from Dublin.
The series begins Friday when England travels to Hyderabad, and while the tour is somewhat context-free, it will nonetheless send fans in both countries into a frenzy as they tussle to be cricket's top dogs.
As England have risen to the top of the world test rankings and claimed the World Twenty20 title from Pakistan, the number of overseas-born players in its various squads has been noticed by fans, particularly those of other countries. Not surprisingly, it's also been used to question the legitimacy of the England team and its current success. (A popular joke from last time England visited South Africa: Where will the England players be staying on the tour? With their parents.)
There are obvious reasons for it: there's more money in England's domestic cricket than in most other countries, so it's an attractive place to play. Numerous South Africans have British heritage that allows them also to represent the country internationally. England's historical position as the center of an empire, of which every test-playing team is located in territory that was part of the British empire at some time, means that all sorts of people have British ancestry or the right to British nationality, and there are British expats all over the world.
It might be happening more in this globalized era, but players have for a long time represented countries other than that of their birth, in particular England: numerous South Africans, from Basil D'Oliveira to Tony Greig to Allan Lamb, plus Nasser Hussain (India), Andrew Caddick (New Zealand), Adam and Ben Hollioake (Australia), Graeme Hick (Zimbabwe), Philippe Edmonds (Zambia), Ted Dexter (Italy) and Geraint Jones (Papau New Guinea). Some players have even represented two nations at different times, such as Kepler Wessels (Australia and South Africa) and the Nawab of Pataudi Senior (England and India), usually because their own country didn't play test cricket at the start of their career.
It raises some interesting questions about the nature of sporting nationalism. Certainly the reaction from England fans and media when the South African-accented Pietersen has a bad run is different from when the Home Counties-accented Strauss does. Pietersen moved to England aged 19, Meaker 12, Strauss 6. And at this point, the question becomes: if it doesn't matter for Strauss, why does it matter for Pietersen, Meaker or any of the others? Like many debates about race and national identity, it's based on largely artificial boundaries that blur to the point of meaninglessness when viewed close-up.
To qualify to play for a national team, a player must be a permanent resident of the new country and cannot have played for his country of birth in the past four years.
But what the talent drain from South Africa to England does show, yet again, is that players are following the money—in England, India and Australia. That doesn't just affect domestic teams: it also affects international teams in a very direct and obvious way. South Africa, currently rivalling England for the top spot in world cricket, isn't affected as much as nontest-playing Ireland, for example. If an Irish player wants to test himself at the highest level, he has to move to England and qualify to play there. So far batsmen Morgan and, less successfully, Ed Joyce have crossed the Irish Sea in this way; Morgan has had a tentatively encouraging start to his test career, and a barnstorming start to his limited-overs career.
But it's tough on a team like Ireland, the strongest candidate for a long time to become the next nation to break into cricket's highest echelon and gain test status. If any of their players actually are good enough to play at test level, they're likely to leave Ireland to do so and deprive the country of the very players it needs to make that leap. Exposure to English domestic cricket has helped Ireland's players, but it's also put them in the shop window as far as England are concerned.
You can't blame the players for wanting to play at the highest level, but it's another example of the way in which the divide between cricket's haves and have-nots is self-reinforcing.
People moving from one country to another is a fact of life in cricket just as it is elsewhere. But it's a cause for concern when the system encourages players to move from one country to another in a way that harms cricket's chances of expanding beyond its parochial borders.