No England plan for Ten Doeschate

Ryan ten Doeschate heads county cricket's "most valuable player" index

By Oliver Brett

Essex all-rounder Ryan ten Doeschate says he has no plans to join the likes of Craig Kieswetter and Michael Lumb and qualify to play for England.

Ten Doeschate, 29, is rated as county cricket's "most valuable player" this season in official rankings.

But he told BBC Sport: "There's nothing English about me, I'm South African through and through."

Ten Doeschate, who also represents the Netherlands, has grown in importance for Essex since his 2003 debut.

But in the same year that Kieswetter and Lumb have reinforced England's batting in limited-overs cricket - they were members of the ICC World Twenty20-winning team in the Caribbean - Ten Doeschate has no plans to don a shirt featuring the Three Lions.

606: DEBATE Hats off to Tendo! I hope you have all noticed that RTD is top of the MVP list on this site? What a cracking player in the peak of his form. Well done Ryan BlueAndWhiteHammer

Speaking as Essex begin a run of three Friends Provident t20 matches in the space of four days, he said: "I'm very grateful to the English game and certainly very fond of county cricket but England have enough good homegrown players.

"It would be wrong for them to dip into the pot every time somebody did a little something special. England are better suited to mostly using their own guys, and then when someone exceptional like Kevin Pietersen comes along using him."

Essex were promoted to Division One of the County Championship this season and won their first match against Hampshire when Ten Doeschate starred with an unbeaten 66 in their second innings before grabbing 5-13 in 5.5 overs.

But the big-hitting Port Elizabeth-born pro, who also bowls fast-medium seamers, says the county almost ran out of energy altogether after having already completed an unprecedented nine Championship games so far this season.

He said: "This year has surpassed any previous year in terms of how busy we've been and in terms of how little down time we've had. We've played one or even two more Championship games than any other team.

"It really came to the fore down at Hampshire this week. You could see the guys were really tired and we got a bit lucky with the rain.

"Unfortunately our free week, so to speak, comes right at the end of the season so in terms of downtime and working at our game it's not very beneficial. But we've made a point not to moan about it and just get on with it .

"T20 is a good time to recharge the batteries. It's fast and furious but it's all very short bursts. If you use the downtime well you can recharge the batteries for the rest of the season."

T20 is a good time to recharge the batteries. It's fast and furious but it's all very short bursts. If you use the downtime well you can recharge the batteries for the rest of the season Ryan ten Doeschate

Ten Doeschate leads Kent veteran Darren Stevens by a significant margin in the MVP rankings.

"The players look at it certainly and I think it does give a fair reflection of what you're putting in; they use a lot of variables to create the index," says the Essex star.

"What I'm really happy about is being actively involved in winning games for Essex."

Essex, traditionally strong performers in one-day cricket, have gone as far as the semi-final stage twice in the first seven years of the old Twenty20 Cup, but no further.

They bring in New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris to complement Pakistan's Danish Kaneria but with stars like Sanath Jayasuriya, Adam Gilchrist and Andrew Symonds at other counties Ten Doeschate admits: "We haven't gone for any massive names."

But he is confident they can improve on a disappointing 2009: "We have got two very solid overseas players and if you look at the other nine guys who make up the team we have got very good one-day players in the side."