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i take it back from the previous blog

Andersen is a legend!!!!

Drop Bell

Colly will come good

Bring in Shah/Bopara

Oh and stuff the foreigners

Manuel Almunia and Cudicini can play for england but we dont want them, it'll make no difference!

Englan are just born to fail

Unless they are as good as pietersen then No Thanks, we dont want them

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

What about the limited number of England players playing in the county championship?

At least England footballers turn out for their clubs and any premiership game will have a large number of capped players (even if they are not English). Football clubs may not be developing enough local talent but those who play in the premiership are competing at the highest level. By contrast there is such a yawning gulf between standards at county and international level, it's largely a matter of guesswork whether a promising player will make the transition.

If people want to come to England, become English and play for their adopted country I don't have a problem with that. Let's also have a reasonable number of the very top internationals to challenge our county players, and revise the international schedule so England players can turn out as well. Kolpak players are no use to anyone and someone needs to solve this problem.

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I have never believe that residency should qualify a player to play for their national side. There should be an ancestor of that nationality (no further back than grandparents) or the player should have been born there.

Greg Rusedski could play for GB at Davis Cup because his mum is British - that's fine. Kevin Pietersen would be fine because his mother is English.

Likewise Robin Smith and Allan Lamb had English parents, so were not South African as such.

However, Saqlain Mushtaq and Stuart Law? No, never. Similarly, Lesley Vainikolo should not be playing rugby for England.

c_b_fry - i was wondering the same thing.

it was positively spartan in its minimalism, wasn't it? jejune, perhaps! makes a pleasant change from all these verbose meedja-types who just want to write loads of thought-provoking prose to intrigue us and incite healthy debate.

more please Alec!

I think you should have at least one Englsh parent to play English sport. Or be born here.
The players should have a major commitment to England.

I think the ICC should stipulate that whichever country you play for first, you can't change it later. Not just Saqlain, there's talk about Hamish Marshall, Rudolph, Dippenaar and Klusener qualifying for England. That would be rubbish.

The second stipulation could be on the lines of players being forced to play only for the side where they learnt their trade... although this could be difficult to enforce. The rule could be something like: "Player should've spent a large part of his life (measured at the time of 1st international appearance) in said country."

Qualification to play should be based on parents or residence, and once you jump you should not be able to go back. It goes well beyond Cricket. England rugby picking South Sea Islanders is a joke, as would Saqulin playing for England...

Kolpak players are slowly doing to cricket what the non-England qualified majority have done to football.

Even in the humble backwaters of the North Devon Cricket League where I paddle we have teams bringing in (and paying) overseas players and there was a recent bust up in the Devon Cricket League about overseas players. If grass-roots teams feel the need to stuff their side with non-England qualified players in order to win minor leagues the writing is on the wall for the whole game.

lets face it , no indian would ever choose to play for england over his home country in fact most indians would rather play for mumbai or any other ipl team than england ....simply because england can never offer that amount of money and their hearts are in india anyways.

that leaves the aussies , who also because they are aussie would never play a proud nation ........ plus the money is better again.

that leaves very few of the other quality sides .... which in this case would be SA , who because of the race laws may play.

but the rest if they play then they would only raise the standard as they are between india and england on the icc cricket rankings , the rest logically shouldnt qualify

Country of birth ,or country of parents birth.
No Grandparents rule ,no residency rule.
For cricket ,football ,rugby ,etc.
But what do I know.

As long as the players are prepared to represent England in other areas, such as by being available for military service in Iraq, then bring them on.

You could argue people who decide to come to the UK and become British are more committed than those who are simply here through choice of birth.

In cricketing terms I firmly believe that if have played top level (ie ODI / Test) cricket for one Country then you should not be able to play for another.

I also feel there is a big difference between KP (made a clear choice to become English and wants to play for HIS Country) and say Trott / Joyce (who just want to get to the top and have no particular wish to play for England).

Kolpaks are easily solved within existing laws. Simply award 16 points per championship match to a team who plays 9 genuinely England qualified players. Yes this doesnt cover Law/Saqlain etc but there are few of these players who have played top level cricket elsewhere. The issue is the Rudolphs of this world and the players who are just here to gain experience. Make them decide by picking them for England D and E teams which would make them ineligable to play for their actual Countries (like we did with Symonds).

My worry is that there will be so many Kolpak players who when their national team calls go scooting off to play for them, that England end up with the tab-ends. Thus England cricket ends up in the same miserable position of Premiership football versus the England team.

I'm sorry, Vaughan, Giles Clarke and Ashley Giles are absolutely right. One or two you can live with, 5 - I don't think so. I want the England set up to encourage the Stuart Broads of this world, not some ageing star who's finding it incredibly cosy (and not badly paid) with our counties.

Kolpak's and the stream of Antipodean's coming to play for counties are little more than sporting mercenaries. The money should instead be used to foster new young British talent rather than pay into the pension plan of a South African.

Shame on the counties and time for the ECB to start showing at least some backbone. There is some encouragement in ridding English cricket of these unwanted Kolpak players with the apparent ruling this month to come from the European Union putting an end to it.

Who wants to see an England side made of Australians and South Africans, who are only playing cricket over here to increase the size of the wallets.

Globalization will make players and aspirants from the Commonwealth countries look beyond their geographical boundaries. Love for the Gentleman's Game may inspire players from over - populated countries to move in search of greener pastures. Since only eleven can play for the national team, many may not like to end their playing careers as professional and permanent bench warmers in their respective countries. The ICC will have to do something more to keep the Gentleman's Game alive by supporting and encouraging talent.



Dr. Cajetan Coelho

I've never understood why countries like Israel and Turkey get to sing in the Eurovision Song Contest and I've never understood how simply having a 'trade agreement' with the EU can confer EU employment rights on any citizen of a non-EU country. There's simply no common sense involved.

Citizenship and permanent residence should be a fundamental requirement to play for a National team anywhere. Otherwise any international match, including The Ashes, will eventually amount to nothing more than our Australians and South Africans versus their Australians and South Africans.

As a matter of interest, how many Brits play for India, Pakistan, Australia, or South Africa? And does the Kolpak Law work in both directions?

How about this - if you have previousley played for another county then you automatically can not play for England (assuming its a test nation).

Second - if you havent then you sign away your rights to play for any nation other than England before playing and MUST become a citizen of the country you wish to play for.

If this was implimented it wouldnt stop people coming here alltogether but I think the problem is not so much test level, its county level. Quite simply if the selectors can not see English players to select playing in the county sides then choices are going to be very limited. Therefore counties need sorting out as a priority or in 5 years time we may be looking at the opposite of what we had many years ago - we could end up with 1 english player in some sides !

Anyone who is eligible to join the RAF, the Army or the Royal Navy should be eligible to represent England, period.

All this nonsense about special eligibility is not justified; anyone having doubts should look up (google) the "Spy Princess"; she fought and died for England so others could live in freedom and express their thoughts freely.

As far as I know about the England football team there are usually ten good players available. The goalkeeper position, which several decades ago never used to be a problem, seems definitely to be one now. I wonder about the conditions under which the trainer of the side has to work. One advantage that Cappello might bring is that he comes from a country where defensive football is emphasized, and England can definitely do with learning how to play it.