England decimate South Africa in Cricket World Cup opener

Problem with that is that it doesnt allow people to change their minds as they mature. When you are a schoolboy you dont really care who you play for, there isnt any real pride in representing your state and then country, its just you are good at your sport and so keep rising in the ranks. I was born in Australia to English parents spent first half of my life there, played for Queensland in a couple of sports and then at 15 moved to England where i felt like i was home more than at any time in Australian. I supported Australia when i was younger but now the idea of supporting anyone but England or whoever is playing Liverpool is an anathema. I think that the rules are pretty good, most athletes barely have a decade to play and for them to sacrifice a few years of that to gain residency, when they have a parent or parents thru whom they can get in, i say do it. Being born in a country doesnt mean too much, look at Strauss and Symonds, both of them are the most English or Australian men you could possibly imagine yet neither born in their country.

Slow down champ. I'm talking one day teams. Tell me which of the top one day sides would drop a current first pick to snap up Khawaja, and who would they be dropping? Morgan is widely recognised, by coaches, team mates and cricket commentators as one of the two key driving forces behind England's one day renaissance - which has been remarkable. There's nothing questionable about it. Never mind the intelligence of his captaincy and the invaluable batting contribution he makes. And if you could only be bothered to google you'd appreciate Morgan has played all his senior cricket in England, and all for one club, Middlesex. He's been there 16 years! He's hardly been poached. Don't take it from me, take it from him: Morgan told the Sunday Times that ‘From the age of 13, I wanted to play cricket for England. I’ve never felt any shame in saying this is what I wanted to do. And the people at home involved in cricket, they were like, “Fair play, it’s going to be unbelievable if you make it”. Again, nothing questionable about it. And your final howler directed at Stokes. Mate, there's really no excuse, the video is out there. He didn't 'king hit' anyone and nor was he charged with that. He stupidly took on two ex squadies who'd been on a drunken night of their own in Bristol town centre, threatening and abusing all and sundry, one of whom was wielding a glass bottle. And no where did I 'brag' about picking him. I'm as I was.

I like how Neil uses the word import, likes its normal to cricket. When I think of imports I don’t think of international cricketers swapping countries. It seems normal to some. I like the reference towards Morgan and Archer as well. “Any team in the world would snap up the latter two” Say no more.

I couldn’t care less what the West Indies cricket board did Ronan. They didn’t kick him out and say go find another country to play for. If you’ve grown up in a country and played underage cricket for that country, you should never be allowed to play for another country again. That then denies England any reason to persuade or offer incentives to switch over and play for there country. And if that was the case I’d have absolute no doubt Archer would be playing for the West Indies this World Cup, and how good would that be for world cricket.

Qualifying through residency is hardly a new thing. Andrew Symonds could have played for England (birth) the Windies (heritage) or Aus (residency). He made his choice, and these players have made theirs. No use griping about it, them the rules ...

Don't get defensive Neil.

You're saying Neil no one in the world would want Khawaja? You might want to stop there. For starters, UK has a test average of 43, ODI average of 44. Morgan has a test average of a whopping 30, great stuff that. ODI average 39, s/r marginally higher than UK. Sorry, who would want Khawaja with those numbers? You also said: "Morgan makes the side as the best one day captain in the world currently". So what you're saying is some combination of: - England poaching him is justified because he's the best one day captain in the world currently; and/or - Morgan is the best one day captain in the world currently. Both seriously questionable. You are also justifying the selection of a guy charged with king hitting someone while on the turps. Not the sort of guy I'd be bragging about picking. As you were.

What about Archer, Morgan, Roy and Curran? Genuine question, I don’t know their backgrounds.

Pepe the frog. What a legendary frog.

Yeah, no thanks to facing Lee or indeed pretty much anyone!

South Africans have had some the biggest cheats the game has seen. Did you forget about Cronje, Gibbs throwing matches, De Villiers guilty of blatant ball tampering.

You’re right, ouch, although at least Te’o has an English mother. I have to say I was quite surprised, though, on my last visit to Oz to see the new custom/passport lines that had opened up at Sydney airport. I had to choose between ‘Australian Citizens’; ‘Non-Australian Citizens’; ‘Fijian Backs’; and ‘Tongan Forwards.’

I get your point, anon. But, then again, Aussie players pay the price for the 30 years of boorish, arrogant, unpleasantness that preceded them. Some of them (Warner, Smith etc) were part of it. Now you’ve got ‘sandpapergate’ to live down. They’re their own worst enemies. Apparently, Langer’s got the gall to demand that England fans don’t give Warner and Smith a hard time. You’d think after Lehman had directly encouraged Aussie fans to abuse Broad all round the country for the ‘sin’ of not walking (Lehman never walked in his entire career) there’d be a little more self-awareness.

I wasn't that confident England were going to win until van der Dussen got out (the SA batting collapsed thereafter). I think we should give Amla another chance considering he had to leave the field after his hit on the helmet by Jofra Archer. Hopefully, the Bangladesh match will be a bit gentler for Amla!

I think you've got a great chance against Bangladesh on Sunday - gives you a chance to fix some of the problems experienced yesterday. I know that SA could've done far better than they did but the rest of the team needs to step up: de Kock and van der Dussen scored more than half the SA runs between them.

Honestly mate, if you think Stokes' old man playing league for NZ disqualifies his 12 year old from being classified as 'home grown' in English cricket, I'm not sure what planet you're on. Something you might also not know is that Morgan has played all his cricket for Middlesex since 2006 and still plays for them today. Pietersen and Archer were/are clearly already hot prospect imports, but as you rightly pointed out, they chose to take up legitimate English heritage claims on their own motivation. No one poached them, and there isn't a team in the world that would have turned them away given the choice.

Not sure that pitch can be classed as a road, most struggled with their timing as the pitch was pretty slow and sticky.

I do feel a bit sorry for Mark Wood. They said during commentary yesterday that Mark Wood has to strain everything in order to bowl 90mph while Jofra Archer bowls 90mph with ease! Let's not take anything away from Archer though as he's followed the correct procedures and still had to work his way into the WC squad - let's remember he wasn't in the squad until last week!

It's 'learned to read' mate. And it's no surprise at all you don't understand the points I'm making Paul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ePx61TkXKY Seen this mate? Proper fun.