The maddening overseas merry-go-round

"I have given up the right to play for my country in the future and this was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. I will miss playing for South Africa, but I honestly feel that my future lies in England."
Jacques Rudolph to the Yorkshire Post.

"He actually approached us with the whole arrangement. The real reason he is going is so he can become a better player for South Africa in the future."
Gerald Majola, the head of Cricket South Africa.

An awful cynicism has obviously taken grip on English cricket, much worse than any of the look-the-other- way pragmatism of the past, and, it seems, it is out of control. It can never have been more starkly exposed than in these statements, as Rudolph pretends to be as committed to Yorkshire as Geoffrey Boycott while back home they wait for the return of their temporary exile.

Yorkshire believe what suits them, of course. The ECB, meanwhile, gnashes a few teeth and say there is nothing it can do, because of the nasty old lawmakers in the EU. But, as Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, points out, signing Rudolph has cost Yorkshire at least £23,000 because of the performance fee payment scheme that penalises the loss of a place to a home-grown player.

Yorkshire are hardly alone. All the counties are at it. What started as minor exploitation of an obscure EU ruling over a handball player nobody had ever heard of, Kolpak is now cricket's enduring migraine. Historians will point out cricket has always accommodated carpet-baggers, hired hands and the geographically confused. In 1878, WG Grace, the richest amateur of his day and a grade-A hypocrite, famously kidnapped Australia's Billy Midwinter (who also played for England) on the eve of a tour match against Middlesex at Lord's and persuaded the poor man he'd be better off playing for Gloucestershire against Surrey at The Oval. Billy, who later went mad, might have felt very much at home this 2007 season.

Or even in 1975, when Tony Greig, born and educated in South Africa, found himself captain of England. Or 1982 when Allan Lamb, proud son of Langebaanweg, Cape Province, came aboard, followed over the years by the Smiths, Chris and Robin, and Graeme Hick, all the way up to KP. In Australia, they had to put up with the transitory loyalty of Kepler Wessels.

On the excellently nostalgic and informative ESPN Classic TV channel recently, Wessels, having returned to South Africa, is interviewed after playing a major role in beating Australia at the start of the 1992 World Cup. Gently quizzed by Greig he says: "I just want to also thank Allan [Border] and the other guys in the Australian team for the spirit in which the game was played. Certainly their attitude towards me was very, very good. I really appreciate that because ... their friendship means a lot to me." Surely it does. But what was then an oddity of capriciousness is now commonplace.

Look at the mad merry-go-round set in motion at Headingley by the signing of Rudolph and, more pertinently, the Boycott-inspired signing of Younis Khan, the county's second overseas player alongside Jason Gillespie: Matthew Elliott is suddenly squeezed from the squad, so where does the Australian batsman go? To Glamorgan - for a month. After which, he will be replaced by ... his compatriot Jimmy Maher.

This is madness. There is no coherence, no logic, not even the slimmest sense of propriety. The counties have not only greased the revolving door, they have put batteries on it. Some of these wandering mercenaries must wake up wondering which end of the M1 they're on.

The Rand Refugees will always be better off than in their own land, where bleating about quotas has proved the most convenient way to soothe consciences as they abandon a country even now still wrestling with the transition to normality. That's the bigger moral dilemma. Richard Bevan says the players' union doesn't have an issue with overseas players in the County Championship. "The issue is balance," he says. You could say that.

The county game over the past 25 years has been so in awe of overseas players there is no balance. Now the rules governing their status are so loose they are accepted as fully fledged 'locals'. At some point this season, England could field a team that includes Andy Flower, Craig Spearman and other previously non-qualified players. That is not to say those players want to, or that the selectors would be daft enough to pick them.

But the Kolpak and EU-qualified players queuing up to earn the best living the first-class game has to offer below international level must send a message of despair to young, British-born cricketers. "It's disappointing that clubs stretch the regulations and look short-term," Bevan says, "and we want to see the performance fee payment doubled to control these clubs."

That is on the way, apparently. Good. It might have some effect, although I doubt how much. It's not just about money. It's about a festering culture of cynical short-termism by clubs and players who will call England home as long as it suits them. If the Rudolph case is anything to go by, we are a long, long way from finding a solution.