... Andy HB you are incredibly short on your list of cricket stars and impact players.....

It was only meant to be an illustrative list, not an exhaustive one.  A full one would not have been so much exhaustive as exhausting!!    Mind you, I probably ought to have included our most famous 'foreign' tennis player - Greg Rusedski!!

... have no objection to young sports stars going abroad to hone their development but then do they have to then bat for the other side....   i just think that leaching talent from countries that have genuine outdoors or sporting cultures for the benefit of the national pursuit of couch potatoing audinece is a bit cringey!  and the sports stars who pick and choose .....  well i am sympathetic to individuals struggling to want to represent their country.. but on the other hand it's a shame that they can't play the game as neutrals .... like having a cross nation team or two of exiles would show colours to the mast and make sport a lot more interesting but then inngland would never win anything at cricket or any other sport for that matter.... oh dear bring  back 66 and all that

We need to remember that for some, at least, it hasn't been their call.  If I recall correctly, the likes of Andrew Strauss only went abroad because they were taken by a family that were either emigrating or working abroad.  Others would never have got into their own national team; Basil D'Olivera comes to mind - a South African Coloured who would never have been allowed to walk the hallowed turf of stadia such as Ellis Park or Wanderers in Joburg, Kingsmead in Durban, Centurion Park in Centurion, Newlands in Cape Town or Springbok Park in Bloemfontein.