Representing their country at any stage and in any way is a dream of every individual. Same applies to the players of different sports. The only driving force for many of them is the dream of playing for their nations.
However, with the professionalization of sports, we have seen a lot of players switching their allegiance towards a different nation. Same has happened in cricket over the years. There have been 27 players in total who had switched teams in the history of cricket.
There are 14 players who played Test Cricket for 2 different countries, 10 who played ODIs and 6 of them played T20I for 2 nations. There have been 4 players in the history who had represented 2 nations in multiple formats.
In the old ages, ICC did not have clear rules over-representation by players. However, in recent times it has been changed and nowadays representation by a player depends mostly on the citizenship the sportsman hold.
To start with, Billy Midwinter was amongst the first ones to have switched nationality in the cricket field. He debuted for Australia in 1877 but soon changed to England in 1881-82 only to return to Australia a year later. In the history, there have been 3 players who played for India and Pakistan both. Most of the times the shift in the nationalities comes between the Associate Nations of ICC. Let’s look at the some of the famous transfers in the cricket history;
Billy Murdoch (Australia to England)
He started his career in 1875 and got recognition for his wicket-keeping skills by earning the call for the 2nd test match ever. He has a successful career with Australia and went onto captain them also.
He was the first one to score a double century in international cricket. He represented Australia in England as well in the tours that started with name “Ashes”. He switched countries to England but represented them in only 1 test, in which he could not perform well. He remains one of the all-time greats of Australia.
Luke Ronchi (Australia to New Zealand)
The wicket-keeper batsman was born in New Zealand but started playing his cricket in Australia. He debuted for Australia in 2008 against West Indies and became the 3rd fastest Australian to score a half-century.
But soon he was dropped from the national side due to the emergence of Matthew Wade, Tim Paine and Graham Manou. He then chose to return to his birth nation and started his career in 2012.
He became one of the best finishers for the team in the time to come. He rescued the kiwis many times from a collapse and thus becoming a permanent member of the side.
Nawab of Pataudi Sr. (England to India)
Also known as Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi, started his county career in 1931 with Oxford and topped all the batting charts in terms of average. With the subsiding racial grudge, he finally made his debut for England in 1932-33 Ashes series but was soon dropped from the team.
As his health was degrading, he returned to India. He was offered the captaincy of India twice, but he turned it down twice before finally accepting the offer in 1946, becoming the only player to play for both England and India.
Eoin Morgan (Ireland to England)
He made his international debut for Ireland going through the traditional routes of U-15, U-17, U-19 and finally the ODI team. He played for them in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007. He signed for Middlesex in 2008 and made his way for playing for England.
He got his first chance to wear England jersey in 2009 ICC T20 World Cup. His performance took his team to the finals of ICC T20 Word Cup. In 2015, Morgan was handed the captaincy of England ODI team after Alistair Cook decided to resign. He took the team to the No. 1 position in ODI ranking this year.
Kepler Wessels (Australia to South Africa)
He was the one of the very few players who earned success while playing for both the nation. Till todopped. In 1991, when South Africa got the status of full-time member again, he was asked to captain them, and he agreed.
Facts: In women’s cricket, Canada-born Nicola Payne and New Zealand-born Rowan Milburn, began their WODI career for the Dutch team but later changed their nationality to New Zealand and represente d them.