you say it is representational and that players the world over play in the english premier league. which is of course true. the problem, though, is not necessarily that south african cricketers are playing in the county circuit, but that they are staying there with a view to playing international cricket for england. it is this national, not sub-national, element that this is the difference and really the crux of the issue.

drogba still plays for cote d’ivoire, torres for spain, to mention but two examples. pietersen and trott play their cricket in england and have represented that country. moore and lumb (among 30-odd other saffers in the various county squads) are potentially the next two south africans to take the next step into international cricket, and not for south africa.

all of this is symptomatic of a weak administrative structure at csa, and symptomatic of life in a world governed by free markets and the free movement of labour. if players like this are to be kept, or at least encouraged to wish to play for the country of their birth, there needs to be a systematic strategy to incentivise them to pioritise playing for the proteas. try as i might, i see little such intention.

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But..Add to this the quotas and representivity issues and effectively young upcoming white players are competing for a few spots in a provicial side (I think the rule in 6 contracted “non-white” players per franchise). If your are not an amazing talent straight away (like the KP) you are unlikely to get many first-team opportunities and “development time”. B-side cricket vs country cricket - no comparison.

I think for this reason together with money issues (if you can make a career out of cricket you must capitalise on your best years - 23-30) players go play in the UK and eventually decide it might be in their best interest to play for England.

I mean would Strauss, Trott or KP for instance make the side at the expense of Amla, Gibbs or Duminy - they would only be able to replace AB without getting the politician complaining about the racial make-up of the side. They would have ended up like Rudolph vs Dippenaar (in-out).

So yeah, from this perspective it makes sense to play in the UK and try your luck with the English side simply because it has better career prospects (but it is not just money it is also about opportunities to play int cricket).

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I tend to feel great apathy towards KP and the other ex-pat SAns, but you’ve convinced me to rethink my position.

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CSA certainly has not wrapped their heads around this issue. Take KP’s flight from home. The Dolphins franchise keeps insisting that they promised KP the earth, but he didn’t want to stay. What more could they have done?

Quite a lot, actually. Whatever they told KP, they clearly failed to convince the player. Sure, there are many other factors, including the rich rewards of playing in England that you mention. On the balance, though, anybody who grew up in the beloved country would love to stay, and, even at the best of times, leaving is a painful and disrupting affair. The Dolphins dropped the ball. As simple as that.

In the end, CSA needs to consider: does it want to make the effort to try and keep the home-grown talent in SA? Does it make more sense to allow the players to play where they wish, as other sports, notably soccer does? If it wants to keep players in SA, that will make for a major effort, have no doubt about that.

Having South Africans play cricket in other countries certainly has its benefits. Cricket’s success since readmission owes a lot to the craft and captaincy of one Kepler Wessels. Wessels owes much of his craft to the fact that he played test cricket for a team just starting to establish itself as the best on the planet.

If we could welcome back Wessels, can we welcome back others? Maybe someday we can welcome KP back as a coach, and start working towards getting some intelligence in our coaching and the general Protea approach to the game. It would certainly be a nice change…

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