His name was Dawid, not David, and this caught my attention.

Dawid Malan was a recent member-player of the English Cricket tour team, of the annual traditional Ashes, England versus Australia.

Dawid (Johannes) Malan 30 years of age. Malan has been in the English national cricket team since 2017. He has played 10 Tests, with a batting average of 33.64 and runs of 572, and 4 T20s with a 49.25 batting average and 197 runs. Malan is a Right-Arm Legbreak. He also captain's local English club, Middlesex, and played for the Dhaka Dynamites, Khulna Titans, and Nelson Mandela Bay Stars. Can one believe Dawid's father and brother both played first-class cricket ('Dawid Malan', Wikipedia/ 'Dawid Malan, England', Cricbuzz).

Malan was generally a good, consistent batsman for England this series against Australia. But it was the spelling and pronunciation of Malan's first name Dawid that sort of stood out.

Dawid Malan and his name has a South African heritage, but interesting enough, Dawid was born in Roehampton, London, UK, and grew up in South Africa. Famous English players with South African decent are (Sport24, December 8, 2016):
- Kevin Pietersen
- Andrew Strauss
- Allan Lamb
- Tony Greig
- Basil D'Oliveira

Current players in the South African team that have unique names like Dawid Malan are ('South African national cricket team', Wikipedia):
- Temba Bavumba
- Theunis de Bruyn
- Reeza Hendricks
- Heino Kuhn
- Mangaliso Mosehle
- Farhaan Behardien
- JP Duminy
- Vernon Philander
- Morne Morkel
- Lungi Ngidi
- Beuran Hendricks
- Keshav Maharaj
- Aaron Phangiso
- Tabraiz Shamsi

Such names like Dawid would surely have some unique multicultural background. South Africans would usually have an African and Afrikaans-Anglo-Baltic-Scandinavian background.

With different names and surnames, such as Dawid, the speaking, pronunciation, and accent of them is interesting, entertaining, even therapeutic, for some or certain people to hear, acknowledge, and respect.

The name Dawid sounds exotic and ethnic, on a similar to other nationalities and cultures, which also have bigger, longer names and surnames, like countries such as Asia (i.e. China, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh), Africans, Russians and Baltic-Scandinavian, and Middle-East.

This goes back to the years of colonialism, and time of wars, for example, World War I and World War II, and conflicts worldwide. There would definitely been some mixing of nationalities and cultures, and spiritualties and religion, including Africans and Africaans.

The Indian and Sri Lankan national men's cricket team have numerous long, unique names. Some Indian players with such distinct names are ('Indian cricket national team', Wikipedia):
- Sunil Gavaskar
- Gundappa Viswanath
- Srinivas Venkataraghavan
- Bhagwat Chandrasekhar
- Mahendra Singh Dhoni
- Shikhar Dhawan
- Abhinav Mukundi
- Cheteshwar Pujara

The names of Sri Lankan players are (Sri Lankan cricket national team', Wikipedia):
- Sanath Jayasuriya
- Aravinda de Silva
- Mahela Jayawardene
- Kumar Sangakkara
- Tillakaratne Dilshan
- Muttiah Muralitharan

The world is slowly working its way to a certain level of multiculturalism, like in first-world, democratic countries and regions. To give an example, once predominantly white cricket teams in general, like Australia, England, and South Africa, are recruiting overseas-ethnic nationalities to play for them.

In Australia there is batsman Usman Kawaja, Fawad Ahmed, and bowler Ashton Agar; in South Africa bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Andile Phehlukwayo, and Muslim batsman Hashim Amla; and England Dawid Malan, Zafar Ansari, Moeen Ali, Adil Rashid, Haseeb Hameed (Booth, L. May 24, 2017/Martin, A. November 15, 2016/SteveZ, October 16, 2013).

In American movie, African-American star-comedian, Eddie Murphy, stars in, 'Coming to America'. Here Murphy, 'Prince Hakeem of African nation, Zamunda', does some work for the McDowell's restaurant he has contact with, similar but different to the bigger and more popular McDonald's. Like McDowell's and McDonald's, there is an association of Dawid and David. In science fiction-medieval movie, 'The Hobbit', there is also a distinctive name of one of the dwarves, Dwalin, which sounds similar to Dawid.

Bibliography
- Booth, Lawrence (May 24, 2017) 'South Africa finally starting to show true colours as the Rainbow Nation's squad contains more black and Asian players than ever before', The Daily Mail
- Cricbuzz, 'Dawid Malan, England'
- Martin, Ali. (November 15, 2016) 'Zafar Ansari welcomes rise of cricketers of Asian heritage in England team,' The Guardian'/ 'Visakhapatnam'
- Personal References:
I viewed coverage of 2017 Australia versus England Ashes tour, and got to see and hear about Dawid Malan of England.
I have watched movies, 'Coming to America', and both series of 'The Hobbit' / 'Lord of the Rings'.
- Sport24, (December 8, 2016) 'Five SA-born cricketers who have shone for England'
- SteveZ. (October 16, 2013) 'Student questions Aussie cricket team's ethnic diversity', Sunshine Coast Daily
- Wikipedia:
'Dawid Malan'
'Indian cricket national team'
'South African national cricket team'
'Sri Lankan cricket national team'