Overseas players, Good or Bad

[Vrock]

I'd like to see some kind of contract made (and signed) by all counties to agree to having a specific maximum of Kolpak players in the side at one time; they can have 20 different Kolpak players in a season but can only field a limited number at once.

I know this, technically, shouldn't happen with the current laws how they are but, the fact is, Kolpak players restrict our young English players from getting an opportunity.

Overseas players do two things:

1) Improve their own bowling/batting
2) Improve other player's batting/bowling

I would say that counties should have 1 overseas batsman and 1 overseas bowler. This means that they are guaranteed to help both sides of the coin which will only help up-and-coming youngsters and also the general standard of play. Shaun Udal has said that Shane Warne has helped him to develop an arm ball, even overseas players help those coming to the end of their playing careers.

IMO there should be a contract to allow only X Kolpak players to play in a side at one point and two overseas players elected before the start of the season. If either or both become injured or have to go away on international duty then they cannot be replaced by another overseas/Kolpak player.

[Rachael]

We had a thread a while back on just how many England-qualified players in English domestic cricket are actually good enough to be a first team player... and concluded that at best it was about enough to sustain between half and two-thirds of the current number of counties (possibly a generous estimate).

IN the 1980s, English Domestic cricket was of an outstanding quality... and that lasted into the early 1990s... but in the mid-late 1990s standards slipped badly: it's only really in the last 2-3 years that this has been sorted and the reason the standard is better is first and foremost overseas players and Kolpakers... without whom we'd really have to consider relegating most teams to minor counties.

As ever, we hear talk of young England qualified players not gettigntheir chance... but it's much, MUCH easier for a young England qualified player to get to play in one of the 18 counties than it is for an Aussie to get into their 1st class sides: it's not Kolpakers that keep youngsters out... it's youngsters not being very good that keeps youngsters out!

[Mike]

Originally Posted by gibbs_fan

So, should England reduce the number of overseas player or should they encourage more overseas players to come to the county league?

Very good threadstarter GF. A number of points worth discussing but I'll just try and answer the last question: The following stats show the number of overseas players that played in the last domestic seasons of England & Wales (45), South Africa (2) & Australia (1). I've done a bit of maths which I hope is relevant. In the CC there are 18 clubs playing 16 matches each. Since each team fields 11 players there are 1628 CC games available to distribute amongst the players. Overseas players played 393 of those so England players had 1200+ games available to them. By contrast South African players had 657 first-class games available to them and Australian players had 650 first-class games. That indicates to me that there are more than enough first-class matches available for England players to develop a decent Test side ( 550+ extra games). However, I haven't taken into account the standard of CC matches. Although they are considered first-class are they as strong as first-class matches in South Africa or Australia? If not then there is a good argument to bring in more good overseas players to boost the quality of matches. One of the obvious inequities I think is that talented, up-and-coming players from overseas teams can play in CC but talented, up-and-coming England players can't play first-class cricket in overseas countries.

England & Wales - County Championship matches
18 X 16 = 148 matches X 11 = 1628 games
2005 season - 45 players
EC Joyce other 16
MW Goodwin zimbabwe 15
DJ Hussey australia 15
M van Jaarsveld southafrica 16
N Pothas southafrica 15
SP Fleming newzealand 11
IJL Trott southafrica 16
SM Ervine zimbabwe 16
MTG Elliott australia 7
CM Spearman newzealand 13
SM Katich australia 7
Azhar Mahmood pakistan 9
SR Watson australia 5
AJ Hall southafrica 11
JM Kemp southafrica 8
SK Warne australia 11
SB Styris newzealand 9
RR Sarwan westindies 7
SC Ganguly india 5
NJ O'Brien other 13
NM Carter southafrica 15
Mushtaq Ahmed pakistan 16
Naved-ul-Hasan pakistan 9
GA Lamb zimbabwe 9
JJ McLean southafrica 6
AJ Bichel australia 4
HH Streak zimbabwe 8
CM Bandara srilanka 7
A Khan other 14
CD McMillan newzealand 4
DJ Thornely australia 2
UDU Chandana srilanka 6
GJ Smith southafrica 14
Younis Khan pakistan 5
IK Pathan india 3
Harbhajan Singh india 4
JJ van der Wath southafrica 4
MJG Davis southafrica 4
M Akram pakistan 14
M Ntini southafrica 6
D Pretorius southafrica 5
Saqlain Mushtaq pakistan 4
SR Clark australia 4
M Hayward southafrica 4
YA Golwalkar india 2 - 393

Australia - Pura Cup matches
6 X 10 = 60 matches X 11 = 660 games
2005-06
MW Goodwin - zimbabwe 3

South Africa - Super Sport Series matches
6 X 10 = 60 matches X 11 = 660 games
2005-06 SuperSport Series
AM Blignaut zimbabwe 5
IJ Harvey australia 5