Johannesburg-born Craig Kieswetter insists he is 'proud to be English'

Craig Kieswetter, who is earmarked to make his international debut in the one‑day series in Bangladesh, proudly proclaimed his Englishness today. That is not a very common English thing to do, but when you are ambitious to play international sport and your British passport states you were born in South Africa you are duty bound to state your loyalties unambiguously. "I'm proud to be an English person," said Kieswetter, "and I'm proud to be here as part of the English side." In outspokenly trying to appease the critics who believe that England's raiding of South African dual nationals has now reached damaging proportions, he could risk offending his mother – she hails from Edinburgh. Whatever Kieswetter says, there remains a sizeable minority on this multicultural island who will never accept his Johannesburg birthplace, and others less hostile will still wonder if England's recourse to another dual national to follow the likes of Jonathan Trott, Kevin Pietersen and Matt Prior somehow illustrates a rotten core in English cricket. He was offered the chance to do A levels at Millfield, a private school in Somerset, because they happened to spot his cricketing talent when he was on tour with his Cape Town school. But if young cricketers born and raised in England are repeatedly shown not to be up to it, to criticise Kieswetter for achieving higher standards seems to be conducting the wrong sort of investigation. "It's something I'll have to be prepared for my whole career," Kieswetter said. "Being born with both passports put me in a fortunate position. My mother was British and I lived for a couple of months every year in the UK in my mother's family. I've always loved the country, the culture, the people and I'm proud to be able to live in the south-west, especially down on those flat decks in Somerset." The opportunities bestowed by nationality could not have been more starkly obvious for England as they exchanged Dubai for Dhaka, swopping cricket's richest outpost for one of its poorest, leaving an oil-laden country that plans to use seawater to survive for a land of subsistence farming that fears that the sea will one day swallow it up. Kieswetter was offered a chance to take A levels at Millfield precisely because they spotted his cricketing ability when his Cape Town school toured the UK. His final strides towards Englishness have not left him in danger of culture shock: England's High Performance squad spent much of the winter in Pretoria; he opened for England Lions in Abu Dhabi last week with Hampshire's Michael Lumb, another batsman born in South Africa; and this morning , he had what he described as a "chilled out" breakfast with the England batsman and Durban surfie Kevin Pietersen. But he skilfully retreated from the suggestion made by England's Twenty20 captain, Paul Collingwood, that his ability to hit the ball hard must be a product of his South African upbringing. He prefers to credit Marcus Trescothick, a batsman so steeped in Somerset that eventually he could not cope with life away from home. "Tres hits the ball pretty hard as well," he said. "He is pretty keen on keeping things simple, believing that you should always back your ability, try to take the attack to the bowler, and put the pressure back on them." Taunton's flat pitches are heavily biased in favour of batsmen – when they stripped the top few inches of the square in desperation, much to their frustration they became even flatter – but Kieswetter believes that they will provide a good grounding for the sub-continent. "Taunton is quite similar to sub-continent wickets in certain aspects: the pitch wrecks the ball early on and the ball doesn't move around much. The wickets tend to be a bit lower, a bit slower. Hopefully that will suit my kind of game, trying to hit through the ball and put some pressure on to the bowlers. I'll maybe bring a different kind of dynamic to opening up, more of a hard-hitting aggressive role. On these types of wickets opening is the best time to bat." Kieswetter is due to play against a Bangladesh Cricket Board X1 in Fatullah tomorrow, with Matt Prior retaining the wicketkeeping gloves. He was due to seek out England's fielding coach, Richard Halsall for some extra coaching. "I used to throw the javelin back at school, so my arm's not too bad," he said.