The qualification period for cricketers born overseas to play for England has been extended from four years to seven.
The new regulation is to apply to all male cricketers who begin residence in England after their 18th birthday. For those who start to live in this country before they are 18, the period of qualification will be four years. The England and Wales Cricket Board said the new regulations for qualification will be effective as of April 25 2012.
England have fielded a succession of cricketers, in recent years, born abroad but who qualified to be capped by their adoptive country under the four-year rule. South Africa-born Kevin Pietersen, for example, produced his 2005... read more