"Foreign" English Players. So What?

[Mark Kidger]

Originally Posted by Teatime FatCat

Contracted for the first two matches? An overseas pace bowler filling in on english greentops for two weeks before the overseas boy turn up? either I've misunderstood, or that's totally pointles (particulalry if he smashed around) Seems a bit of a waste of money.

This whole business of short-term contracts to fill in for missing overseas players is getting out of hand.

[Mark Kidger]

The estimate is, I believe, that there are about 100 non-England-qualified players in county teams at present out of a total of some 350 registered players. Seems like an awful lot to me. Whats's more, the overseas players are no longer the cream, but in many cases just journeymen. Previously the idea was to sign outstanding foreign players to improve our game, now it seems to be to sign just about anyone who needs a job. One need go no further than the "stars" signed by my own county... Nobody could object to a team like Somerset playing Garner and Richards in their team (or, to name a few other fairly recent overseas players who have played a season, or sometimes various seasons at Taunton: Kerry O'Keaffe, Greg Chapell, Martin Crowe, Sunil Gavaskar, or even the underrated Merv Dillon), these are players who will teach young English players a lot about the game, but who the heck is "Shabbir Ahmed"? 25 years ago I could go to the County Ground at Neville Road and see Sadiq Mohammed, Zaheer Abbas and Mike Proctor, and watching Proctor race in from almost inside the Jessop Tavern was one of the great sights in cricket, but am I going to fork out money to watch an overseas "star" that most of us have never even heard of? (you must be joking!!!)