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There's an article in today's Sunday Telegraph looking at the use of Kolpak players in the English county system which contains a few disappointing tidbits, and that links into a pet peeve of mine: the way the ICC's player qualification rules allow stronger nations (most notably England) to leech talented players from weaker teams. In this case, the player concerned is 16-year-old Gary Ballance, a talented batsman who is a product of Zimbabwe's CFX Academy and recently made an impressive debut for Derbyshire. Ballance played for Zim in the U19 World Cup earlier in the year, and was impressive, but according to the Telegraph:

...he wants to play for England and his recent 73 in a Pro40 match indicates such desire not to be unrealistic.

Likewise, Andy Flower will soon qualify for England by virtue of four years' playing & residence there, and I somehow can't see England coach Duncan Fletcher - himself a Zimbabwean - not at least considering bringing Flower into the England setup - he is, after all, a former world #1 test batsman and has been consistently impressive in county matches. If either Ballance or Flower were to end up playing for England, they would just be the latest in a long string of overseas players hoovered up by the England machine (Ireland's Ed Joyce and South Africa's Kevin Pietersen being the most recent examples).

Associate nations are perhaps more at risk of losing players to Test nations - they usually can't afford to pay players on a full-time basis, so those like Joyce with the talent to make it as a professional player will usually end up playing domestically in England or other Test countries, and once the lure of top-level international cricket comes calling it's hard to resist. That said, such players can at least continue playing for their "original" Associate country until that Full Member call up eventually comes.

To Zimbabwe, though, it's a much bigger problem. Talented Zimbabweans who wish to play for another Full Member nation can't play for Zim during their qualification period - so those players, like Ballance, who feel the draw of playing for England are essentially lost to the national side, which to me simply doesn't seem right - especially when they've come up through the Zim Academy and U19 teams and have been developed within the Zimbabwean system. Never mind the possibility that after working their qualification period, there's no guarantee of them getting picked.

Stronger nations like England should be capable of developing their own talent, without "stealing" it from weaker nations. At what point will the ICC see this and tighten the qualification rules to match those of other international sports? If development of weaker nations is their aim, as they claim it is, should this not be an issue they should be looking at? Or is it, as usual, simply a case of the bigger bank balances winning?

As a related aside, the Telegraph article also reports that Heath Streak is likely to switch from being an overseas player a Warwickshire to being a Kolpak player for next season - which would, of course, rule out any possibility of a return to the Zimbabwean side.
Sunday Telegraph - It makes sense to let counties field one extra foreigner each