ARE KOLPAKS BLOCKING THE PATH FOR YOUNG COUNTY PLAYERS?
Derek Pringle is worried that the influx of Kolpak players in the county game is to the detriment of homegrown youngsters
For some, the health of cricket in England will be judged by the size of the new TV deal that will be brokered at the end of June. But there should be other factor to measure the game’s well-being, such as the number of home-raised cricketers playing in county first teams.
Indeed, southernWells’At the “Warin moment Englandan of echothe the Worlds,”byof numbersthe martians invasion of there seem toin HG a are low. be The Kolpakother day cricketers Glamorgan wherever you look. fielded seven of them, a grim irony given that Hugh Morris, the club’s chief executive , used to be at the vanguard of reducing their numbers in his previous role with the England and Wales Cricket Board
other Glamorgan counties, are such not as alone Hampshire, also with several fielding high enough percentages of Kolpaks to threaten the future health of England cricket. And yet the most absurd example of exploiting this long established loophole, which should close if Brexit is as hard as Theresa May is promising, is Lancashire’s signing of Mahela Jayawardene – a move made possible due to him having a Danish wife.
batsmanNow, Jayawardenefor Sri Lanka has and been should grace a fine the white ball stage for Lancashire with style, but he should be signed as an overseas player, of which two per county are allowed for the T20 Blast. Signing him, in this case as an EU player, is a nonsense especially for a big club with arguably the largest catchment of cricket players in the country.
County cricket has been here before, most notably in the mid-to-late 2000s. On that occasion the ECB introduced measures to curb the spread of Kolpaks by offering counties incentives to play young England-qualified players instead. Many clubs took up the perks but lost heart when faced with the desperate demands of a two-divisional Championship, most notably its shorton, term goals of avoiding relegation from the top division, and seeking promotion from Division Two.
require Unlike patientlocal talent, nurturing which before yieldingmight its full potential (as well as several years’ salaries), Kolpak players, especially those from South Africa, offer a savvy fully-formed player who is relatively inexpensive, given Sterling’s continued strength over the Rand. For coaches requiring something as close as you can get to a guarantee in sport, of which a prime concern is the protection of their own jobs, Kolpaks represent a safer,
more certain and often cheaper option than a talented youngster.
You can see why they might do it. Essex, who have seven first team players born and bred within the county, also have a few Kolpaks, one of whom is South African-born Simon Harmer.
According to one former player at my old club, Harmer has shown himself to be a fine off-spinner and “certainly better than anything England currently have”. He can also bat well and fields like a dervish, qualities that have seen Essex increase his one-year contract by a further two years firstly, because they don’t want others to seduce him away, and secondly, because, as yet, they cannot not see his homegrown equivalent emerging through the ranks.
For those who feel two divisions has been the best thing for the Championship, creating relevance often until the last day of the season with promotion and relegation battles, there exists a counter argument. With every game a “Test” match, coaches are simply not going to risk young English players, with their unknown potential, when they have a Kolpak alternative of known pedigree. But if every team thinks like that, how will youngsters ever get the big game time and experience to improve?
The decrease in Championship matches this season, from 16 to 14, has not helped. To give a young player a fair chance, a county would need to give him at least four Championship games to make his mark.Yet that is over a quarter of the games and a sizeable chunk of your season if it does not work out. Looking around, there are few coaches willing to take that risk especially in the first division where the ramifications of relegation are viewed with great dread.
This, of course, poses the more fundamental question of who the counties, with their reliance on handouts from the ECB, exist to serve? If it is England, as is generally acknowledged, then they surely need to field at least a two-thirds majority of England-qualified players. If not, then the ECB needs to start getting more prescriptive, using the stick rather than the baby carrots previously dangled in front of cash-starved counties.
Take someone like Tom Helm, a talented, young, fast bowler at Middlesex with real potential. As champions, Middlesex will want to hang on to their crown if they can, playing their tried and trusted to do so. England, though, tour Australia this winter, a place where you need good fast bowlers to do your bidding. If there are no injuries to other Middlesex bowlers, Helm might play three to five games in the Championship, which is not nearly enough to complete him, though he may well play his fair share of white ball cricket for the county.
Middlesex should, if they were committed totally to England’s cause, pick him in front of someone like Tim Murtagh, who recently qualified to play for Ireland. Their dilemma, though, is that Murtagh is a damned fine bowler with great experience especially in English conditions.Yet, he is also the present and at nearly 36 not the future, for England, Middlesex or Ireland.
There is another way to get young English talent playing first-class cricket in profitable numbers and that is return to a single division Championship. Such a move would remove the Kolpak problem at a stroke, allowing counties to play their home-grown talent without fear of reprisal should their season not go to plan.
It won’t happen because taking a backward step is tantamount to admitting failure in modern sporting organisations like the ECB, but perhaps it should.
Signing Jayawardene as an EU player is a nonsense for a big club with arguably the largest catchment of players