THE impression has been given, after an ECB edict limiting counties to one official overseas player from 2008, that the fraught issue of foreign talent is at last being faced. This is far from true.

Effectively one third of all championship appearances over the past three seasons have been made by players whose passion for cricket was nurtured, not in British clubs or back streets, but abroad — and that imbalance may be entrenched.

For a start, the incentive payments made to counties for including England-qualified cricketers will apply only to nine players per match. In practice, this offers an immediate invitation to field one official overseas player and another, probably South African, import.

Under this regime, the Kolpak signing — a category of players who are from overseas but do not count as such — suddenly transmutes into the authorised second foreigner. One county chief executive, hearing the news, instantly dubbed it “the Pietersen clause”. He implied that counties would continue to scour the Veld for players who, after four years, could become eligible for England.

In addition, the practice began about 15 years ago of searching out Australians or New Zealanders who, by virtue of British passports or birth, could instantly count as English. A third wave of imports followed when South Africans, lured by the sterling’s strength against the rand, began to leave their home country after secondary school for cricket with county second XIs.

It requires only six months of annual summer residence during the qualification period to emerge as a cricketer whom the counties may field without penalty. This summer, ten South Africans under the age of 27 played in the championship, some in their third or fourth season, and more wait in the wings.

In their last championship match, despite the loss of Mick Lewis, an official overseas player who was summoned for practice with Victoria, Durham fielded a Zimbabwean-born South Africa international, an Australia international, two former West Indies Test players, a veteran New Zealand spinner and a 23-year-old South African on debut.

During the game, Mark Turner, the England Under-19 fast bowler and product of a Sunderland comprehensive, announced he would be decamping to Somerset next year.

The point is not to castigate Durham. Far from it. They are a club who were forced to change policy two years ago by the proliferation of foreign signings among their competitors.

Indeed the unsung Geoff Cook, their director of cricket, is tireless in nurturing the sport in the local community and has unearthed Stephen Harmison, Paul Collingwood, Liam Plunkett and Graham Onions. But, until still more money is offered for producing England cricketers at all levels, and a genuinely significant percentage of the ECB payout is linked to raising home-grown talent, even Durham will accept short-term expedients to avoid relegation.

The problem is that, over the past 25 years or so, the game has largely disappeared in state schools, and a radically-changed economy supports fewer and fewer work-based teams. A solution was sought in promoting talent early, with a network of representative age-group sides. But there is a world of difference between developing a shallow pool of hopeful players and sustaining the game in the culture at large. Like it or not, the task of fostering a critical mass of cricketers in their region fell to the counties, and most ignored the challenge. It was easier, and cheaper, to pick up ready-made players from abroad. All too belatedly, schemes such as the Cricket Foundation’s outstanding Chance to Shine initiative in inner-city schools, have acknowledged this problem.

But it remains to be seen what percentage of cricketers in ten years’ time will be as native as Andrew Flintoff or Monty Panesar.

Overseas - Number of official overseas players with total combined appearances in brackets

Others - Number of all other players whose formative cricket (pre 16 years
old) was abroad with total appearances in brackets

% - percentage of appearances in 2006 championship made by these two categories of overseas players

Those who gained their cricketing education abroad (comprising 47 official overseas players and 60 others) have made 32.92% of the total appearances in the 2006 championship to date

• Mark Vermeulen, who was suspended for ten years by the Central Lancanshire League, has had his ban reduced to three years, two suspended