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Opinion
I could understand the headline reader thinking this team is Test or first-class descendants of Test players.
Nope, although that’s a future possibility, this batch came to mind as I renewed my Ancestry membership and read the short descriptor on patronymic surnames; names derived from the father.
While Richardson no longer means son of Richard, nor O’Neill means son of Neill, I was curious whether an international XI was possible. Prefixes such as O’, Mc, Mac, Gil, Kil and Fitz are English and Gaelic for ‘son of’. Di is Italian, while bin in an Arabic name denotes ‘son of’.
The obvious suffixes is son, sson and sen from English, Scandinavian, Nordic languages, while es and ez derive from Portuguese and Spanish.
Many might have read the last paragraph and automatically thought well Adam Gilchrist is a monte, but Gil can mean son of, servant or devotee and it seems Dave Gilbert is more likely as son of Bert, while Gilchrist is more a devotee. Up to you though if you think his talent was god-given.
I expected a Fitzpatrick or Fitzgerald but as Ireland plays more internationals I guess we’ll improve our quota. I also found it difficult to find Indian players. I’ll stand corrected but my study suggests that middle names are given to denote father or descendant (much like the West does today) while surnames denote caste, or the location a family came from.
It was difficult to find openers, although I may have missed someone obvious and will no doubt be advised, but I’ve played O’Neill way out of position as we have better 3s and 4s.
So in rough batting order:
1. Michael di Venuto (Aus)
2. Norm O’Neill (Aus)
3. Richie Richardson (WI)
4. Kevin Pietersen (Eng)
5. Kane Williamson (NZ)
6. Brian McMillan (SA)
7. Alan Davidson (Aus)
8. John McLean (w-k) (Aus)
9. Bill O’Reilly (Aus)
10. Jimmy Anderson (Eng)
11. Glenn McGrath (Aus)
While it was hard to find an actual opener, there were notable omissions in Craig McDermott, Stuart MacGill and Mitchell Johnson, as well as Aussie all-rounders Simon O’Donnell and Moises Henriques, West Indian medium-pacer Nixon McLean and Irish thrashing machine Kevin O’Brien.
Saeed bin Nadir misses out too, as his 190 first-class games have only got him as far as Pakistan A so far.
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