BLIMEY... NOW AUSSIES HAVE GONE POMMIE!

FOR years English cricket was the butt of Australian jokes because of a reliance on players born outside the country.

But now it seems the wheel has turned full circle.

When the Aussies walk out at the Gabba for the First Test on November 23, they’re likely to have no fewer than THREE players who have British passports – Matt Renshaw, Peter Handscomb and captain Steve Smith.

Smith’s mother was born in West Malling, just 33 miles from Kent’s Canterbury ground that was once home to England legend Colin Cowdrey.

The Aussie skipper has always insisted that he only ever had eyes for Australia rather than the Three Lions.

But that didn’t prevent some tigerish attempts by Surrey to secure his signature back in 2007, towards the end of a season Smith spent playing club cricket for Sevenoaks Vine in Kent, when he was 18.

“We were under strict instructions not to let him speak to anyone who might tempt him to sign a contract that would affect his career with Australia,” recalled

Gavan Burden, the former chairman of the Sevenoaks management committee. “But anyone who thought he would one day play for England was living in a dreamland, though there was serious interest from a few counties, mainly Surrey.”

Surrey, with a contract, knocked on the door of the house Smith was staying in on the morning he flew back to Sydney, but it was too late.

Within three years he would be making his Test debut at Lord’s. For Australia rather than England.

The most intriguing of the British passport-wielding trio is David Warner’s opening partner Renshaw.

The 21-year-old was born in Middlesbrough and began his fledgling career having knock-arounds with England captain Joe Root and his brother Billy Root.

Those took place while Root’s father Matt and Renshaw’s old man Ian played for Sheffield Collegiate – the club that also developed the talents of former England captain Michael Vaughan.

“When the games were on I would go down and Joe and his brother Billy would be there,” said Renshaw (below) before his Test debut for the Aussies last November.

“After the games we would play a bit of cricket on the outfield.

“I’ve caught up with

Joe in England a few times and Bill came over to Australia for a few years and stayed with my family.”

He’s now looking forward to ‘catching up’ with Joe in the white heat of an Ashes series.

Watching on, from behind the stumps, could be Handscomb, whose late father John went to Cambridge University, and also played for Huntingdonshire in the old

Second XI Championship throughout the 1960s.

The family’s English cricket heritage stretches back even further with Handscomb’s grandfather Sid playing Minor Counties for Cambridgeshire before the outbreak of World War Two.

A battle of a gentler sort is now on the horizon.

But England can expect little friendly feeling from these ‘Poms that got away’.