The trend of changing countries has become popular among cricketers as more and more nations are willing to invest money in the sport. Several new cricketing nations have come up in the T20 era, but not all nations have enough talented cricketers.
On the other side, there are multiple Test-playing nations which have an abundance of talent, but they cannot give chances to all due to limited places in the squad. Some of the benched players from those nations decide to switch to another country. USA has become a popular option now, with Corey Anderson, Sami Aslam, Unmukt Chand and Bipul Sharma taking that route.
While the aforementioned four names are yet to make their debut for USA, here’s a list of four cricketers from Test-playing nations who became heroes for associate nations.
1. One of the current Namibian cricketers – David Wiese
David Wiese was a part of the South African squad in the beginning, but in 2021, he moved to Namibia. He helped Namibia qualify for T20 World Cup 2021 and even defeat Scotland in the Super 12 round.
2. One of the current Netherlands cricketers – Logan van Beek
Not many fans would know that Logan van Beek was born in South Africa but he moved to New Zealand to make a career. Soon after, he switched to the Netherlands, and he recently helped them win the World Cup 2023 Qualifier match against West Indies.
3. Daniel Jakiel
The cricket universe may not know much about Daniel Jakiel, but he is a former Zimbabwe cricketer. He played two T20Is for Zimbabwe back in 2019. In 2022, he joined Malawi and bagged a five-wicket haul for them in T20Is.
4. Roelof van der Merwe
South African star Roelof van der Merwe was one of the top all-rounders of the Proteas team in the late 2000s, but he quite the rainbow nation and joined the Netherlands. Last year, van der Merwe helped the Netherlands beat South Africa in T20 WC 2022.
