Don't read too much into my comment, but on reading the article, only one quote came to mind: Patriotism is the last resort of a scoundrel.

Excellent, excellent article.

i am one of the many who keeps making fun of the England team being full of Saffers. But this article will make me shut up. Completely agree with the author. Very well written and it hits home somewhat! Well done Mike.

Agree. Kieswetter's case is in any case more viable than Trott or Pietersen, but they have as much right to play for England as anybody who has lived in the country for so long. We all enjoy a Saffers-in-England joke but on a serious level, it's completely unprofessional and a bit insulting for the press to continuously attack their background.

What ever spin is put on the issue the fact remains that England's national cricket team is hardly English at all. Please tell me what is the point of international competition if it is not based on nationalism. Surely it is meant to be a mechanism where national pride is put on the line, where young and sometimes not so young men go into sporting battle representing their countries banner or flag. If professionalism is going to be used as the excuse for this lack of nationalism why not go the whole hog and simply auction off the worlds best players to the highest bidder and let them represent the country that wins the bid. What a farce that would be, who would care if their country won or lost under those circumstances. That is where England nearly is at the moment, in an almost pointless situation, what joy / satisfaction is there if England win on the backs of Pieterson, Trott, Kieswetter and co.

Agree with Mike Borchardt. We used to enjoy watching/hearing local players from Surrey & Middlesex doing well for our country. There is no pleasure in watching a 'foreigner' playing for England. By all means call me racist but I would like to see 11 Englishmen playing for England. If that means we are the worst Test team in the world, so be it, at least it would be an English team. How long before Englishmen are in the minority in the national side, not long methinks!

Jimmy Won, whether or not your view is racist depends upon your definition of 'Englishmen'. If you'd object to Carberry, Shahzad, or Rashid, for example, playing for England because of the colour of their skin, then that is racism. If you're complaining about Strauss, Prior, Pietersen, Trott, Kieswetter and Morgan then that certainly isn't racist ; I suppose it might be called xenophobic, although that doesn't sound quite right given that 5 of the 6 are British citizens, so technically not 'xeno-' . That group does go some way to indicating the complexity of this situation though, and historically it's always been particularly complicated for England. You'd have to be pretty fundamentalist to complain about Strauss, who learnt the game in England, so who else should he play for ? Have you been following Middlesex and Surrey cricketers long enough to have watched Phil Edmonds ? If so, how did you feel about him playing for England ?