Scotland's cricketers face a vital few days.
They play Ireland today and again on Sunday in two critical World League Championship One Day Internationals, with two wins needed if they are to keep alive their hopes of direct qualification to the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup.
Scotland's aspirations of challenging the sport's top teams were strengthened earlier this year when the regulations regarding player eligibility were changed. Previously, only those who were born or lived in Scotland could represent the national team; the changes mean that players with a British passport and Scottish parentage can be selected.
Hamish Gardiner was born in Australia but has a Scottish mother and made his Scotland debut this week against Australia. The captain for Tuesday's match was Preston Mommsen, who was born in South Africa and represented his country of birth at under-19 level. Their most experienced player is Neil Carter, born in South Africa but qualified to play for Scotland on residential grounds. He won his first Scotland cap last year, at 37 years of age.
While this change of ruling does not s eem unreasonable, I am always uneasy at any move which loosens the criteria that determines sporting nationality.
I do not wish to single out cricket. The situation in football is worse. Players can qualify to play for Scotland if either of their grandparents was Scottish and the Scottish Football Association has selected numerous players who qualify for the national team by this criteria. Footballers are also eligible to play for Scotland if they were schooled here for five years.
The first thing that perturbs me about eligibility criteria, is that they differ wildly from sport to sport. Just as there are now universal rules concerning anti-doping, there should also be one blanket rule concerning nationality. Representing your country should be the pinnacle of your sport and I fear that if the criteria concerning eligibility are too loose the honour of being capped will be devalued.
Every country endeavours to select the best athletes available to them. The only thing that matters in these days of ultra-professional sport are medals and trophies, and this simply encourages countries to push the boundaries when it comes to selecting athletes who can enhance a particular nation's potential to win silverware. British Athletics has been criticised over the last couple of years for recruiting 'plastic Brits': athletes who have only recently converted to being British. All of the home nations' rugby teams have players who were born and bred outside of the country that they now represent.
I realise that there are myriad reasons why athletes may want to change nationality: family ties and opportunities never offered by one country but presented by another are just a couple of reasons which may contribute to the decision of an athlete to change nationality or picking one country over another.
There is also the less savoury reason for changing nationality: that an athlete may not be good enough to represent his or her first-choice nation.
My view is not fuelled by xenophobia. Rather, I think that international sporting events are greatly enhanced by the fact that they are different from the week-to-week competition between club teams. So there is something farcical about athletes pimping themselves out to whichever national team seems the most attractive option at the time.
In my view, residency alone should not be sufficient to change nationality. Badminton has had a huge problem with this over the last decade or so: I played in European Championships and Commonwealth Games which were won by Chinese players, which makes a mockery of their gold medals.
I also believe that allowing players to defect on a whim is hugely discouraging to indigenous talent. What incentive is there for young athletes to aim for a place in their national team if he or she feels that there is a significant chance of the place being snatched away by an import at the last minute?
I accept that foreign talent can, at times, be a valuable and productive addition to a squad and the presence of a higher-quality athlete can strengthen a team and provide an important role model. Far more beneficial than importing athletes, though, is developing homegrown talent thus negating any need for additional players to be sought in the hope that they may have a Scottish grandparent.
The issue will never be fully resolved. When it comes to athletes selecting nationality, no two cases are identical; which means that it is impossible to create a definitive rule on the issue. But representing your country should mean something and, if the rules concerning eligibility are loosened any further, we risk losing that.
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