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       Basil D’Oliveira

      There have been other examples of how the game of cricket has had an impact on the passage of history. None are so quite vivid as that which came to be known as the D’Oliveira affair.

      In these post-apartheid days, when the new South Africa is doing its best to repaint its political landscape in all the colours of the rainbow, it is hard to imagine the context in which the political furore erupted that followed Basil’s belated inclusion in the England squad for the 1968–69 tour to South Africa as a replacement for the injured Tom Cartwright, eventually led to the cancellation of the tour, and thrust the republic into sporting isolation for more than twenty years.

      But the fact is that, in 1968, governed by hard-line Prime Minister John Vorster, South Africa was still utterly committed to maintaining its hated racist subjugation of black and coloured people. For supporters of the status quo there, the name Basil D’Oliveira represented the kind of independence and strength among what it considered to be its underclass, which they feared and despised. For the rest he became a symbol of hope.

      Categorized in those days in his homeland as a Cape Coloured, Basil arrived in England from South Africa in the early 1960s to make a career for himself in professional cricket. His performances with bat and ball, a hard-hitting striker using an immensely heavy bat and a partnership-breaking specialist swing bowler at slow-medium pace, earned him his Test debut in 1966, and by 1968 he was a regular in the side.

      After South Africa had refused the New Zealand Rugby Board permission to bring its Maori contingent in 1967 on the grounds that they would not entertain teams of mixed race, and the Kiwis cancelled their All Black tour as a result, fears were raised that Basil’s presence in an England touring party might lead to a similar stand-off. Marylebone Cricket Club, under whose flag England teams toured the world, assured Dennis Howell, the Labour Minister for Sport, that their team to tour South Africa in 1968 would be chosen on merit, and that if any player chosen were to be rejected by the host country, then the projected tour would be abandoned.

      All year long, mindful of the probability that Basil would be selected for the winter trip to South Africa, and of the South African government’s possible reaction, the MCC sought to clarify the position. As early as January 1968, the MCC wrote to the South African Cricket Association asking for an assurance that no preconditions would be made over their choice of players. No answer was forthcoming, but as the time approached for the squad to be picked it looked as though the issue would be avoided for the simple reason that although Basil made 87 in the first Ashes Test, by the end of the series he’d been dropped.

      Had Roger Prideaux, himself a replacement for Geoff Boycott, not pulled out of the final Test at the Oval with bronchitis, the D’Oliveira affair might never have happened at all. In the event Basil, drafted in at the last moment, made 158 in a rare England victory and what happened next changed the course of sporting history. First, when the squad was announced the day after the Test ended, on 28 August, Basil’s name was not on the list. The selectors and captain Colin Cowdrey insisted that the decision had been made purely on cricketing grounds. Chairman of Selectors Doug Insole attempted to explain by saying that Basil had been considered as a batsman only, and not as an all-rounder. ‘We put him beside the seven batsmen that we had, along with Colin Milburn, whom we also had to leave out with regret.’ But for the majority of observers, their decision smacked of appeasement, of bowing to South Africa’s racial policies.

      The stakes were raised when Reg Hayter, Basil’s agent (and later mine), arranged a deal for Basil to cover the tour for the News of the World. Now that would have made interesting copy.

      Then, three weeks later on 16 September, Cartwright was forced to withdraw from the squad through injury, Basil was called up to replace him, and the simmering volcano erupted. In South Africa, Vorster claimed Basil’s late inclusion proved that the England selectors had given into pressure from anti-apartheid sympathizers, and he made a speech in Bloemfontein, described by the Daily Mail as ‘crude and boorish’, in which he stated that South Africa was not prepared to receive an England team that had been forced upon them by people ‘with certain political aims’. On 24 September, the tour was cancelled and the first shots in the battle to force South Africa to confront real change had been fired.

      As I grew to know Basil over the years, and later specifically as our coach when I moved from Somerset to Worcestershire, I found he took no pleasure in being at the centre of the affair. He was proud of the role he was able to play, but on occasions wondered if the long-term benefit to his people was worth what they were having to suffer as a result of South Africa’s isolation. At that MCC special meeting on 5 December the main speakers criticizing the MCC’s mishandling of the affair were former Test batsman the Reverend David Sheppard, and a young Mike Brearley. Basil never forgot what they did, and he was similarly grateful for the support of friends such as John Arlott and Reg, his agent, who had both helped Basil and his wife Naomi to come to England in the first place. The one thing upon which all commentators were agreed at the time was that Basil kept his dignity throughout. Deep down, I know he was inspired to achieve what he did in the game because of a sense of responsibility he felt to all of the above people, but more significantly to all those fighting for recognition

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