International Cricket in South Africa From 1971 To 1981 - The Road To Isolation

The Road To Isolation

Sport in South Africa had been divided on racial lines since the early white settlers. Cricket was no different. In 1891/2 Walter Read's Englishmen first played against a non-white team, the Malays. No non-white South Africans played any other international cricket until 1956, when a team of Kenyan Asians toured against South African non-whites. However, with apartheid laws becoming ever stricter, no non-white was selected for the national Test team. This did not, however, stop white-majority Commonwealth from playing white South Africa at cricket. In the 1970s and 1980s, the South African Cricket Board ran a competition called the Howa Bowl, which was contested between non-whites.

The Basil D'Oliveira affair changed all that. D'Oliveira was a mixed-race South African (partly black - "coloured" under the Apartheid classification). Unable to play for his national side, he came to England and played for them instead, going on tour to the West Indies in 1967. His performance on that tour was not impressive, and he was omitted from the Ashes Test squads in the following summer until the fifth and final Test at the Oval. He scored 158, and was expected to make it to the team to tour South Africa in winter. When initially he wasn't selected, there was great controversy in England, with the English Test selectors being accused of pandering to the racist regime in South Africa. Then, when a vacancy became available through another player dropping out, D'Oliveira was selected in his place. But South African Prime Minister John Vorster opposed his selection, saying that it was not a team of the Marylebone Cricket Club, but of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. England did not tour.

However, Australia did tour in 1969/70, with the Springboks whitewashing them 4-0, making them unofficial world champions of the sport. They did not play another official Test match for 22 years. Their tour to England was called off in 1970, with England hastily arranging a tour by a Rest of the World team, which itself included some South Africans.

Garry Sobers, the West Indies' captain and their best cricketer, caused controversy by coaching and playing in Rhodesia in 1969. In September 1970 he caused even greater controversy by playing in a double-wicket competition that heralded the start of the cricket season there. Although Sobers spent only 48 hours in Salisbury, he had time for lunch with the prime minister, Ian Smith, and described him as a great man to talk to. Sobers' statement and his participation in the tournament gave Caribbean politicians an opportunity to make clear their hatred of apartheid and racism. The Guyanese prime minister, Forbes Burnham, said Sobers was not welcome in his country until there was an apology. The Jamaican government called for his resignation as captain. The Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, forbade the Indian cricket team to tour the West Indies until the matter was sorted out.