Ireland Cricket Team

[PeterG]

In case you didn't know, in the current Cricket ICC World Cup Ireland, ranked 11th out of the 14 teams partaking, have already beaten Bangladesh in the warm up last week, and they beat the West Indies when they met for their first group match yesterday.

And according to expert commentary on the BBC last night, they will probably beat England as well if they get through Pool B and meet England in the next round.
This is what happens in the top professional division of many team sports in England, peopled as they are by foreigners. Which is why England can never win a football cup as not enough English players are permitted to play in their national top division to get the requisite experience. And why Ireland were able to beat them last time they met them in the Cricket World Cup and could beat them again, as all the Ireland cricket team play in the top county teams in England, South Africa and Australia.

In the top division of football in Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil most of the players are domestic. ONLY in England is it the case that most of the
players in the top division are foreign.

[NogbadTheBad]

So what do you want to do? Ban English teams from signing the best talent available?

According to the last stats I saw:-

England - 55%
Italy - 52%
Germany - 46%
Spain - 35%

Hardly the radical difference you are talking about. It's not about being permitted, its about an open market and the teams being able to hire who they want. Especially across Europe it's illegal to stop a person from one European nation earning a living n another European country. England's problem is the the league is awash with cash so teams have the spending power to get global talent & English players are overpriced based on talent level.

Personally I'd like to see a commitment to grassroots investment in local talent but these are corporations who are interested in the quickest way to success which usually means cheap imports.

[PeterG]

No, what I would like to see however, is domestic players being given more of a chance in their top home league.

The number of foregin players is significantly higher in the English football Premier League, as early as 2009, there were already less than 40% English players in the PL. And for the top PL teams that have remained in the PL since its inception that figure drops to between 30% and 20%

[JKL2000]

O'Flaherty can't bowl for shite!

[Yves]

I've been watching some of this event. We get a 1-hour capsule of every game. I like cricket and would like to see more of it on TV. We used to get IPL games but now they're on a channel I'd have to pay 15.00/month for.

[davis]

I have zero interest in the sport but wanted to share that when I first saw the thread title I though it said "Inbred Cricket Team'. WoW.