Were Most members of the 2007 Irish World Cup team South Africans and Australians? I think the O Brien Brothers were still playing there and they are as Irish as anyone can get.
What we would like to see is more representation of Chinese Origin players in the HK team, right now it seems like a Pakistan D side masquerading as as HK team. How can we ever expect the local majority to get into Cricket when the team is fully composed of players of South Asian Descent.
With this approach I don't think it will ever lead to inclusion of Chinese players in the HK Team as it remains full of Pak players for over a decade now with no changes in ethnic composition of the team.
Mark Chapman has a Chinese parent and Chinese genes IIRC, he was so good he now plays for NZ. Thats not HK's fault.
The Irish squad of 2007 had at the top of my head the following players.
Bray - Aussie
Botha - Saffer
Langford - Smith - Aussie
Johnston - Aussie
Rankin - Irish
Morgan - Irish
NOB - Irish
KOB - Irish
Porterfield - Irish
McCallan - Irish
White - Irish
So over a third of the team were non Irish, and all the non Irish players played absolutely crucial roles.
Most likely blocking a team that can field host origin players so this is doing damage to the game.
Look at classic examples of UAE and Hong Kong where Indians and Pakistanis are running towards to play cricket and blocking access to Holland who can field originating players. This is unfair.
ICC should only give international team status if the country can prove they have a player base and not reliant on recruiting from abroad. This is why I suggested the 4 player minimum which is a soft approach to this problem.
If they can't field 4 players then they simply don't get the go ahead and participate in ICC matches.
Then you will see teams like Holland, Ireland, Scotland, Nepal rising, even though they might not be as good, make it to tournaments and develop from there.
What do you think would serve Hong Kong as a greater inspiration to take up cricket? Seeing a team full of Indians and Pakistanis winning for them and laughing about it or a team full of Hong Kong origin players making their mark? This will grow the game.
First off, the Dutch are arguably the worst at exploiting eligibility rules. In the 2014 T20 edition, they invented an injury to a Dutch born player, Tim de Gruuth was his name IIRC, so they could send him home and call up Tom Cooper, who has never played a second of Dutch domestic cricket to my knowledge, who ended up playing many crucial knocks. In addition many of the XI's they field contain more players not born in Holland than are born there, so using them as an example aint gonna work. In the case of the UAE and co. these guys actually live and play there, and as I said before, they have societies dominated by expats so it makes sense the side reflects that, in the case of Holland they often fly in and play players who have never played in the country, but have Dutch parents or grandparents.
That said there's nothing wrong with what happens here IMO, the Dutch are perfectly entitled to call ip talented players once they are eligible, as are the UAE, Oman et al.
And as I said before, this HK side were either born there or learnt all their cricket there, this argument that because someone is called Khan or Nawaz or Singh that they are automatically hired mercenaries who dont give a damn about their team is massively insulting to the players in question, as well as the team, not to mention very oddly discriminatory in its nature since we all know had these guys been white nobody wouldve batted an eye, hence why youve heralded the Dutch as homegrown when quite a few of them evidently arent.
As for the argument of whether sides should do this or not, I can tell you watching the 2007 WC as a first time viewer I did not give a damn about what colour the team was, what accents they had or what country they were from, all I saw were 11 guys playing under the one flag with passion and desire and I'm sure any Cantonese individual watching HK today or in any of the past WC's would have seen the same of their side, and that does a hell of a lot more to draw in a new audience than an ethnically identical XI playing at a nothing level gaining no attention or profile.
