Will Test cricket's pleasures be diluted?
Jade Dernbach's selection for the Lord's Test was a watershed for the England team which could have contained more players born in South Africa and Ireland than in Britain writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian
Akhila Ranganna
25-Feb-2013
Jade Dernbach's selection for the Lord's Test was a watershed for the England team which could have contained more players born in South Africa and Ireland than in Britain writes Barney Ronay in the Guardian. The real draw of all international sport arrives post‑natal: it is a business of testing how we do things, refining a methodology, ranging the products of one minutely constructed culture against another. Once this process is diluted, the magnetism fades a little.
The only relevant question is: what does this player tell us about English cricket? The more they tell you, the more English they get to be.
By this formula Dernbach is entirely English. He came to England aged 13 having only ever played rugby. His success tells us about Surrey schools and the county academy. Craig Kieswetter, on the other hand, a South African Under-19s player, tells us above all that South African cricket produces explosive adrenaline-cricket wicketkeeper-batsmen.
Of course, this is all no more than fan chat. Winning is everything and England have quite rightly picked their best teams. And for all this sense of a blurring of the lines, Test cricket will remain fascinating simply because it is Test cricket – albeit it is at its best when at its purest, methodology ranged against methodology, each part a chapter in the same larger story.
Akhila Ranganna is assistant editor (Audio) at ESPNcricinfo