Counties forced to release players

[andrew_nixon]

Something I've been moaning about for a while now has finally been (partially) changed.

Counties that have Scottish, Irish and Dutch players in their sides will now be obligated to release those players to play for their country in ODIs. No other games though, which is a shame.

Counties this affects are:

Durham: Kyle Coetzer (Scotland)
Essex: Ryan ten Doeschate (Netherlands)
Kent: Niall O'Brien (Ireland)
Lancashire: Greig Thompson (Ireland)
Middlesex: Eoin Morgan (Ireland), Gordon Goudie (Scotland)
Northamptonshire: Andrew White (Ireland)
Warwickshire: Dougie Brown (Scotland)
Yorkshire: John Blain (Scotland)

Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands will be pleased, but Kent will surely be annoyed. On June 13th they play a county championship match and will be without both their first and second choice wicketkeepers.

 

[FreddieFan]

Good, hopefully it will improve the quality of cricket for the non-test playing nations, which can only be a good thing.

 

[aussie1st]

This sounds very much like rugby union and league where players aren't released. And its not just the small countries, NZ was also having problems. Its good to see one sport at last cracking down on this. This should improve the standard of cricket.

 

[andrew_nixon]

This sounds very much like rugby union and league where players aren't released. And its not just the small countries, NZ was also having problems. Its good to see one sport at last cracking down on this. This should improve the standard of cricket.

It does get a bit stupid at times. In 2003, South Australia weren't even obligated to release John Davison to play in the World Cup! They did, but the fact that they didn't have to is quite worrying.