County Cricket / Editor / 30 April 2007 /

Foreign players have been part of the English domestic cricket scene for decades now and will undoubtedly continue to be an influence, despite England and Wales Cricket Board moves to cut the numbers allowed from the end of the current season. Some pundits though feel it could be a futile attempt to bring on more English qualified players and improve the standard of the international team.

Looking all the way back to the likes of Joel Garner and Sir Vivian Richards at Somerset and Clive Lloyd at Lancashire through to Mushtaq Ahmed at Sussex, and you will see that many of the more successful county sides have been propelled to victory by foreigners.

This season will be the final one when counties are allowed to field two official overseas players, most having chosen to exercise that right so far, with the maximum becoming one from 2008. Counties though will be able to register multiple overseas players in case of injury or unavailability through their international commitments.

But that will most likely only move more players to take advantage of the Kolpak ruling, which has allowed them to give up their international career (permanently or temporarily), take EU residency, and qualify to play as a non-overseas player without restrictions of any kind.

The ruling came about when Slovakian handball player Maros Kolpak was released by his German team because of that sport's restriction on overseas players, but after contending the ruling in the European courts, he opened the doors for any professional sportsman who resided in the EU, or in a country with an associate trading relationship, to work freely in any other EU country.

Although the number of Kolpak players this season is below 20, you can expect that number to go up next season as the more marginal international players from the Caribbean, South Africa and Zimbabwe making a living in England, decide to forego their Test career. Players from Australia and the sub-continent are not able to claim Kolpak status, but they are still able to apply for a British passport after five years in the country, much as Aussie star Stuart Law has to be able to continue to play for Lancashire.

So, who are going to be the main foreign contributors in the county game this season?

The two star names who already are, or will be later, playing county cricket this season are the two best spinners in recent cricket history; Australia's Shane Warne and Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Lanka.

Despite his retirement from international cricket, Warne decided to continue his lucrative stay with Hampshire and with him being available for the whole season, you can expect him to challenge the 100-wicket barrier in the county championship after taking 58 last season in 13 games. The Aussie legend started with eight wickets in their narrow win over Surrey, and with early-season conditions appearing to offer plenty for the spinner, he should be nothing short of sensational.

The Hawks also have the thought of Stuart Clark to look forward to when he arrives at the Rose Bowl at the end of the World Cup, fresh as well having not played very much for Australia. Add in Nic Pothas, who qualified for British residency, and that is a massive trio of players for Hampshire to get excited about.

Muralitharan should also be available for the rest of the season once he is ready to return to playing after the exertions of the World Cup, but Lancashire have not taken their option to replace him in the short-term and they looked short of bowling options in their opening county draw with Warwickshire. He will also be joined later in the season by regular Red Rose favourite Brad Hodge, who averaged 101 in his six games with them in 2006.

Among the batsmen this season, it would be no surprise to see an overseas player top the averages after Mark Ramprakash took the honours back for England in 2006, with Justin Langer looking like the ideal candidate.

Somerset are another team, like Hampshire, to have benefitted from an international retirement with Langer committing himself to the County Ground side for the entire 2007 season. The Australian showed that he means business in his very first game, cracking an incredible 315 against Middlesex - 2000 runs for the season should be in reach for the veteran, batting at three at the moment, especially with conditions to suit batsmen at Taunton.

His former international team-mate Cameron White also returns and should be a player to watch in one-day cricket after a fine debut season, that saw him total over 2000 runs in all competitions and take a fair few wickets with his improving leg-spinners.

But none of those sides can expect to match the production Sussex will get when they eventually are able to play four 'overseas' players in Mushtaq Ahmed, Rana Naved-ul-Hasan, Saqlain Mushtaq and Murray Goodwin.

The first two of those will be official overseas players, with Goodwin one of the first to take advantage of the Kolpak ruling and Saqlain becoming the owner of a British passport in May, after spending enough time in the country since marrying a British citizen. That quartet has over 15 years of experience in England.

Goodwin averaged 63 last season while Mushtaq and Rana combined for 137 wickets in 21 games combined, to inspire the Hove-based side to championship glory. Having Mushtaq and Saqlain bowling in tandem, if summer pitches do assist spin at all, will be a scary thought for even the best of batting line-ups in Division One.

Kent and Yorkshire are the other sides to be fielding four non-English players at the same time, with the White Rose county looking particularly strong after Jacques Rudolph's decision to take a break from his South Africa career and become a Kolpak player.

The quick-scoring batsman opened his season with a century and joins a potent, dangerous line-up, and with Jason Gillespie sure to take his fair share of wickets as well, the foreign stars could push the Tykes towards a title challenge.

The Kent Spitfires will be a very solid looking side when Andrew Hall arrives from the Caribbean to provide them with another all-rounder, alongside Ryan McLaren, a South African who could be one of the dark horses to impress this season. He will open the bowling, has good pace and is a very attacking batsman in the lower middle-order. They will also hope that Yasir Arafat repeats his wicket-taking heroics from last season with Sussex, if they are to challenge.

Fans at Edgbaston should have plenty of excitement this summer as well, with the signing of Kumar Sangakkara surely one of the best of the off-season. The Sri Lanka star will aid their one-day side greatly and should not be overlooked in the longer version of the game. With Dale Steyn having made a strong start with the ball, their foreign contingent will be good to watch.

Two more batsmen worth a mention here are Durham's Michael di Venuto and HD Ackerman from Leicestershire, both of whom should be among the leading scorers in the four-day game this season. The under-rated Ackerman ended last season behind only Ramprakash (albeit at some distance) and di Venuto has scored runs for whatever county he has represented, previously with Sussex and Derbyshire.

Stephen Fleming also returns to Nottinghamshire once he has completed his post-World Cup break and should score a ton of runs, especially as he has no one-day international captaincy to worry about any more.

Essex should be getting plenty of production from Danish Kaneria and Andre Nel once the South African links up with the squad - he is being replaced by Andy Bichel from Australia in the early part of the season.

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