When home is away from home
People have always moved back and forth between countries for work
Tariq Engineer
25-Feb-2013
People have always moved back and forth between countries for work. But when it happens in sport, particularly in the case of national teams, it is most sharply noticed. The current England side, for example, has a number of players, including the Test captain Andrew Strauss, who were born in South Africa, and jokes about the team’s composition abound. In the Wall Street Journal, Richard Lord writes that the global flow of cricket talent into Test-playing, cash-rich nations has benefitted England, India and Australia in particular.
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.
Tariq Engineer is a former senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo