5 Cricketers who played for other countries and then came back

3. Ed Joyce

A classy and technically sound batsman, Ed Joyce is the first player in the 21st century to have played for both Ireland and England. Born in Dublin in Ireland, Joyce actually made his international debut for England first and then came back to Ireland to play for his homeland.

Joyce started playing for the English County Middlesex in the year 1999 as a member of the second squad. He won the NBC Denis Compton Award that year, which is given to the most promising youngster every year in the county season. He became a fixed member of the first squad in 2002. Joyce continued to amass runs for the county and would often captain the squad in absence of the regular captain Owais Shah.

Impressed by his consistent performance and the ability to play strokes, the England team management gave Joyce a chance to make his international debut in an ODI against Ireland itself in June 2006. He opened the innings for England with Marcus Trescothick and scored 10 runs from 21 balls.

Later that year in November, Joyce was selected to be a part of the Ashes Series but was not given a chance to play any matches. He did play for England in the subsequent Commonwealth Bank Series comprising of Australia and New Zealand and scored 288 runs at an average of 32, which included a match-winning century against Australia. Subsequently, he was selected in England’s 2007 World Cup squad even though he played the ICC World Cup qualifiers for his home country Ireland.

Following an average World Cup, Joyce was dropped from the English team. He continued to play county cricket and switched to Sussex in the year 2009. Even after scoring heavily in the domestic arena, Joyce was being continuously overlooked by the English team. At the brink of 2010, he decided to quit cricket for England and presented a desire to play for his homeland. Till then he had played 17 ODIs and 2 T20Is and scored 471 and 1 runs respectively.

The 2011 World Cup was lined up around the corner and according to the norms, Joyce would’ve to wait 4 years to play for Ireland. But, in November 2010, ICC permitted Joyce to play for Ireland in the World Cup and subsequently he was announced in Ireland’s 15-man squad.

He was a part of the team that defeated the English team at the biggest stage. Before hanging up his boots in 2018, Joyce represented Ireland in 61 ODIs, 16 T20Is and 1 Test (Ireland’s debut Test match against Pakistan). He scored 2,151 runs in ODIs at an average of 41.36 and was one of their most successful batsmen.