At first glance there would seem little in common between last week’s third Ashes Test at Edgbaston and the fourth Test between England and the West Indies at St John’s in April 2004.
But in fact last week was the first time since that Test in the Caribbean that England took the field with an XI which didn’t have a player born under the African sun.
Andrew Strauss debuted at Lord’s on May 20 2004, with a 100 and 80, and so begin a continuous African presence in the side for over 10 years.
Immensely talented, ostentatious and ultimately polarising, Kevin Pietersen entered the team in 2005. Matt Prior and Jonathan Trott followed, making a quartet of South Africans in the one side for nearly two years. Pietersen’s last Test, in Sydney 2014, was Zimbabwean born and raised Gary Ballance’s debut and he with brief support from Trott has carried the era until being dropped for the Birmingham Test.
While they all had different journeys to England and into English cricket, heritage is still a fundamental makeup of one’s character.
African-born players playing in an England side are not unusual, with Kenyan-born Derek Pringle, Zambian Phil Edmonds, Zimbabwean Graeme Hick and South Africans Tony Greig and Basil D’Oliveira just a few coming to mind.
However it is the sheer extent of the modern Afro-England era which is extraordinary. The era lasted a consecutive 139 Tests spanning 11 years, doubling the Tests of Greig and D’Oliveira, and easily eclipsing the time of Pringle, Allan Lamb, Robin Smith and Hick.
The Strauss-Ballance era contributed over 24,300 runs, 469 catches and a handful of wickets. Strauss, Pietersen, Prior and Trott were such an integral and dominant part of the side, which lost only 28 per cent of 140 Tests. Strauss and Pietersen also captained England.
It is probably worthy to note Zimbabwean Andy Flower was coach for around half of the era as well, although coaching is an international game these days.
While they have made a huge contribution to English cricket, it hasn’t all been rosy. Apart from young Ballance, all have had their share of controversy, with Pietersen central. He was a walking headline for most of his career, and Prior and particularly Strauss were involved in public spats with Pietersen near their exits.
Although the sun may have set on what will probably be the most influential African era of English cricket, it doesn’t mean the current England XI were all born in England. All rounder Ben Stokes was born in New Zealand.
Some things never change.
Jake
Guest
Expected better from you JimmyB. You're usually a more snide than that. Aside from Henry Speight, who are the Wallabies with no long -term Australian connections? Making things up again to suit your narrative. oh dear. Maybe next time eh?
Sandy
Guest
I took a glance Jimmy, who in the Wallabies are you referring to?
JimmyB
Guest
My bad.
JoJo
Guest
Yeah but they are an Australian team and are not beating us so we dont care. As Aussies we only talk about where people are born when they are not Australian and beating us, sheesh get with it.
JimmyB
Guest
I believe that they all do. If you want a truly international team, take a quick glance at the Wallabies. They actively look for overseas talent to absorb into the team, with no connection to Australia at all.
ColinP
Guest
Strauss and prior have English parents I think too
ColinP
Guest
Fair enough, you've unfortunately picked the same topic and exactly the same titke
Andy
Guest
Trott moved when he was 18 or so, Strauss was 6 and Prior 11.
Jason Emms
Roar Rookie
No, I can honestly say I never saw it. I don't look at Cricinfo these days since they changed their format Obviously the topic stood out to others as well
Jake
Guest
Most of them had grown up in England though hadn't they? Was KP the only one to go over when older?
JoJo
Guest
I always feel sorry for Strauss especially when we Aussies complain about overseas players. Obviously its sour grapes but i can get behind mocking KP a bit but Strauss, whilst not Australian born is as English as the most Englishman and it just seems unfair to compare the two.
ColinP
Guest
Reared in aus, but born in Hong Kong to two British parents working abroad, a bit like my own children, but theyre still English. If michael Clarkes missus gives birth abroad in 7 months or so while on tour with him, and in 5 years time they decide to relocate to England so Clarke can defect to sky, would the child grow up to play for England, or would Clarke insist it play for his home country Australia...? The latter I imagine,
ColinP
Guest
Hmmm I wonder if the author took inspiration for this piece from somewhere..... http://www.espncricinfo.com/the-ashes-2015/content/story/903965.html
SDHoneymonster
Guest
May well be the last time we ever see such a cluster of overseas-born players playing for England in truth. The rules for qualification have been quite heavily lengthened; they've gone up from four to seven years for someone born in a full member nation if they get to England after the age of 18 (although it's still only four years if you arrive before the age of 18 or if you were born in a non full member nation - a 21 year old from Ireland or Afghanistan would qualify at the same time as an 18 year old from Australia or South Africa), and the ECB a few years ago heavily incentivised a push towards youth and England-qualified players which meant teams moved away from experienced overseas-born players who might have ended up playing for England almost by accident, arguably, in my opinion and quite a few other seasoned county cricket watchers at least, at the expense of quality: the reason the likes of Cook, Strauss and KP came into the Test team almost fully formed because there was an excellent blend of youth and experience that made the county game an excellent standard and that has dropped in recent times, even though the ECB had good intentions at heart when they brought the new regulations into place.
SDHoneymonster
Guest
Going strictly by birth though - as this article does - Sam Hain is Hongkonger! Kind of shows you that defining someone's identity by their birth alone is a risky business, after all I don't think you'll get many Aussies claiming Andy Symonds is a Pom...
Frederick the Englishman
Guest
The last couple of paragraphs are fitting. We might well be moving into the Anglo-Anzac area, with Stokes already a regular fixture and a certain delicious prospect by the name of Sam Hain (reared in Queensland) almost certain to feature soon.