Monday, March 20, 2006

Kenyan born Dalrymple impresses for England 'A'

Jamie Dalrymple was born in Nairobi in 1981. I don't know a lot about him, and was only alerted to his existence by Horotashi from Big Cricket. It looks however that he is a class act. A shame that he has been selected for England 'A' - even if he did want to play for Kenya in the future, he may not be allowed to, although I confess I do not know the details of this rule. If he can, and wants to, Dalrymple could be a huge boost for Kenya in the next few years. He is only 25, so has plenty left in the tank. He is a quality batsmen with First class centuries and double centuries, and has taken 5 wickets in an innings. He would be a very useful addition to our side. Then there is the fact that he is a mzungu. Now one of the things I am exceedingly proud about is the racial make up of Kenya's team. In the past ten years or so, we have fielded players with backgrounds from both India and Pakistan as well as African players. If we could field a caucasian player as well, we could give the South Africans the bird along with the line "so who is the real rainbow nation". Kenya is a country of several races, and sport I believe is a great way to promote harmony within a nation. Cricket is already a great example of this, and I look forward to it continuing to lead the way.
Back to Dalrymple. He has performed well with England 'A' in the West Indies. Coincidentally, Joyce, Ireland's best player is also playing for the side. One would think that England are able to produce enough of their own quality players without continuing to skim the cream off the Associates. Both these players are probably now unavailable to the Associate sides, but I wonder how many other undiscovered talents Kenya could have out there? Let's hope we can find them before England does!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ed Joyce played for Ireland in the ICC Trophy and will represent them in the Caribbean at the World Cup too...

Until he actually plays for England, he is allowed to play for Ireland....

Chemosit said...

Good news for Ireland that - he is a very strong player.
With Dalrymple it will be more down to whether he would want to play for Kenya or not I suppose.
Either way, it still annoys me that England are happy to take players from other countries, and never mind the consequences to those teams.