Saffers ubiquitous in the counties, but the England invasion began a long time ago
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has tried all sorts of ways to stem the tide of South Africans playing in England since Maros Kolpak paved the way for sportsmen to play their trade (literally) within the EU.
The ECB gave financial incentives to counties to select England-qualified players and fined them for using foreign players. There were above-thetable deals and under-the-table “understandings”. There were criteria created with the help of the UK’s Home Office, which issued work permits only to players with recent international experience (on the basis that foreign journeymen were no better qualified to play on the country circuit than English journeymen).
Things may look and feel bad for the ECB at the moment, with eight recent Proteas players having forfeited their right to play international cricket in order to play domestically in England. But it’s nothing like a decade ago, when a nadir was reached — a match between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire was contested with 13 nonEnglishmen, of whom five were South Africans.
Leicester were captained by HD Ackerman and included Boeta Dippenaar, Jacques du Toit, Claude Henderson and Dillon du Preez, while Northants wielded Nicky Bojé, Riki Wessels, Lance Klusener, Andrew Hall and Johan van der Wath — although strictly speaking, Wessels counts as an international, with a variety of passports to choose from.
None of 2016’s crop has set the first fortnight of the new county season on fire: Marchant de Lange (Glamorgan), Dane Vilas (Lancashire), David Wiese and Stiaan van Zyl (Sussex), Simon Harmer (Essex), Hardus Viljoen (Derbyshire) and the infamous Hampshire duo of Kyle Abbott and Rilee Rossouw, who were the only ones to walk out of active international duty.
Most of the time, they encounter nothing but welcoming smiles and genuine hospitality, although many ways have been devised over the years for opposing batsmen and bowlers to turn Kolpak into a pretty brutal swearword. (Ironically, Slovakian handball player Kolpak, who travelled to the European Court of Human Rights to keep his job at a German club, is an unassuming and a gentle man.)
There are small but significant pockets of resistance and resentment in England to the wanton way in which counties have snapped up so many nonnationals, especially South Africans.
Despite the many good reasons for them not to do so, they simply cannot resist the quality on offer at the prices they can buy them for.
As the director of cricket at one club told me: “It’s like spotting an Armani suit on the sale rail — you just buy it and alter it later if it doesn’t quite fit.”
The “invasion phenomenon” has existed for much longer than most people realise. Well more than a century, in fact. It could be said to have started with Billy Midwinter, who was born in Gloucestershire before migrating to Australia as a young child. He was recruited to play for Gloucestershire by WG Grace, who also once “kidnapped” him out of the touring Australians’ dressing room and forced him to play for county rather than country against Surrey at the Oval.
The great writer Neville Cardus was saddened by what he saw: “Most of cricket’s griefs arise from importation”, he said. “There is news that more Australian cricketers are on the high seas en route for England”, and that “another Indian prince — a splendid cricketer — is Sussex-bound and a whisper that Bert Vogler is not satisfied with his lot in the Transvaal and that another season or two may see him playing for an English county”.
Ninety years ago, one of the greatest batsmen, Bill Ponsford, was recruited on a lucrative professional contract to play in Lancashire’s Ribblesdale League and for the county. It caused a furore and, eventually, Ponsford was persuaded to stay in Australia.
In a prescient comment that seems as relevant now as it was in 1927, Cardus wrote: “International cricket will be hurt severely if the Australian game cannot hold firmly to its resources. But we must be realists. Sentiment is excellent in its place, but cuts little ice in a world where economic values rule most of us. An Australian cricketer has as much right to regard his skill as a commodity as the next bricklayer, candlestick maker or violinist. Though none of us relish talk in cricket about the labourer and his hire, it is difficult to see how we can shut our ears to it.”
Just substitute Australia for SA and there you have it.
● With gratitude to The Guardian’s “The Spin”