Basil D'Oliveira Affair Remembered 40 Years On

Current England cricket team captain South African-born Kevin Pietersen was given a Test against the land of his birth at the Oval to mark his ascendancy.

Forty years ago, it was another South African playing at the Oval who would dominate not just the back pages with a match winning 158, but the front as well.

The reason was his exclusion from the forthcoming touring party to South Africa, also the land of his birth. The decision was made on political grounds rather than in consideration of the needs of the side or the ability of the player.

A firm body of evidence suggests that Basil D'Oliveira's initial non-selection was made for reasons other than ability.

Take his merit as a player. He was considered the best black player of his era in South Africa. But, denied the opportunity to play representative cricket because of his skin colour, he came to join England's northern leagues in 1960.

Signed by Worcestershire, D'Oliveira made the 1966 England side to face the West Indies, playing in all but the first Test.

After only two years in the first class game, he was included as one of Wisden's five Cricketers of the Year.

D'Oliveira played in the first Test against Australia in 1968, top-scoring with 87 not out in a losing cause.

He was dropped but returned for the final contest at the Oval and scored 158, while also taking the wicket of Barry Jarman in the second innings. It was the breakthrough that ultimately won the match.

All eyes were now on the selection of the touring side to South Africa.

Despite apartheid being firmly entrenched in South African life, rising domestic tensions over racism, and South Africa leaving the International Cricket Council, white Test sides continued to compete against the Springboks. India, Pakistan, and the West Indies had never been invited to play against them.

Following England's heroics at the Oval, captain Colin Cowdrey proclaimed: "It's good to have beaten the Aussies. It looks as though we shall have problems with South Africa, though. They can't leave Basil out of the team. Not now."

The problem was that the South Africans were unlikely to accept any black player as part of a multiracial touring side.

In January 1967, a report appeared in the Johannesburg Sunday Express claiming that then interior minister Peter le Roux had implied that D'Oliveira, if chosen to tour with England, would not be accepted in South Africa.

When the touring side was announced, D'Oliveira, who had just scored 128 for Worcester and headed the batting averages against Australia, was missing.

The chairman of selectors Doug Insole explained that, "from an overseas tour point of view" D'Oliveira was considered "as a batsman rather than an all-rounder."

It was felt that Tom Cartwright, a medium-pace bowler, would be more likely to succeed on South African wickets than a man who had grown up in the Cape. There were places for Keith Fletcher and Roger Prideaux, neither of whom had been selected for the squad at the Oval.

As for Cartwright, he had not represented England all summer and had missed nine of Warwickshire's last 10 championship matches through injury.

Graeme Wright, the editor of Wisden from 1986-92, declared that "the only sound louder than the cries of conspiracy was the sigh of relief blowing out of South Africa."

Indeed, a National Party rally in Potchefstroom broke into cheering and applause on hearing the news of D'Oliveira's omission. Despite increasing calls to isolate the abhorrent regime, it appeared that English cricket's ruling body the MCC had wanted to avoid a confrontation with South Africa.

The attitude of the cricket authorities has to be considered alongside their political persuasions.

The leading figures representing the MCC viewpoint were Aidan Crawley and Dennis Silk. Crawley had been an MP for both Labour and Conservative parties, while Dennis Silk "rejoiced in the third name of Whitehall."

Every one of the 10 selectors had played cricket in South Africa.

The chairman Alec Bedser later became a founding member of the right-wing Freedom Association, which received funds from the South African government to promote its cause. Fellow selector Arthur Gilligan had been for many years a member of the British Union of Fascists.

Nineteen members of the MCC resigned in protest at D'Oliveira's omission and Labour MP Ivor Richard called on the Race Relations Board to investigate it. They were placated when Tom Cartwright had to pull out of the tour and D'Oliveira was chosen as his replacement.

Again, the selection defied cricketing logic. Cartwright was principally a bowler who could bat a little and D'Oliveira's substitution for him was completely inconsistent with the selectors' initial arguments.

South Africa's prime minister John Vorster told his party conference that D'Oliveira's selection was unacceptable. "The team as constituted now is not the team of the MCC but the team of the Anti-Apartheid Movement."

Under pressure from the Labour government, the MCC called off the tour. It did not play South Africa in a Test series until 1994.

During this period, various voices on the right called for the re-engagement of relations with South Africa, though the authorities realised that this would cast England out into the wilderness.

South Africa now play England for the aptly named D'Oliveira Trophy, while many who were once concerned with keeping politics out of sport now favour a boycott of Zimbabwe, further muddying the "logic" of the right's thinking about race and politics.