Alright! That’s what I’m talking about!Finally, people have decided to listen to the BNP, and keep the English county league for the English. Out with those nasty foreigners.
A report in today's Daily Telegraph claims that the ECB is set to eradicate the Kolpaks and throw a tightened overseas player policy into the mix. To quote:
“Pending any unforeseen loopholes in EU law, any player not holding a British or EU passport will need to have played five Tests or 15 one-day internationals in the preceding two years (the final criteria have yet to be agreed, but must not be over-discriminatory) in order to be signed by a county. That way, the quality of imports goes up (counties can still sign overseas stars) while their numbers come down.”
This is an interesting move, and I the Twickeneese Panopticon, didn’t see it coming. This may be a little short sighted: consider the West Indies greats of the old, who learnt a lot of their cricket in an English county. It is not naïve to suggest that England is still an important supplier and polisher of international cricket talent.
It’s a bit like Sandhurst, only with less grooming of blood-thirsty dictators to be.
I have long hated this Kolpak business. It’s cheating, to be honest.
The reason that it was brought about is not due to globalisation or Evil Germans, but the enhancement of county cricket’s quality and the greater intensity that this demands. Given the heaps of counties out there, there is simply no way that weedy bumpkinshires could produce the required number of nut-case, Aussie wannabies.
So they turned to the next available source of bastardliness: South Africa.
But, as with any market, once a shock has been absorbed, the system will be re-structured and, I suspect, some losers will be eaten up, or fall off completely.
The collapse of certain county sides was perhaps the ECB’s original intention when they bisected the championship. It’ll be sad for some. But, I’ll certainly cheer once some of the smaller, more pointless clubs, like Surrey, finally get the chop.
