We know that South Africa was isolated due to its Apartheid policy. But I am here to tell the story of their Cricket Isolation.

In 1961, The Commonwealth status of South Africa was revoked. In 1964 South Africa was banned from the Olympics. Then in 1966, banned from the Football World Cup. The New Zealand All-Blacks Rugby Union team was supposed to tour there that same year. When the South African government asked that they send an all-white team, the All Blacks cancelled the tour.

Under ICC regulations, they should not have been able to play in Test Cricket. But teams went on playing them. The Australian cricket team visited in 1966/67. The South Africans considered Australia world champion, which was arguable. South Africa won 3-1. Their first-ever series victory over Australia. New Zealand, Australia and England continued to play them home and away. But South Africa would not play India, Pakistan or the West Indies, because of their all-white player policy.
South Africa was a place where people rushed to find gold and diamonds, But one of the many precious commodities that South Africa ignored, was plying his trade in the English County Cricket – Basil D’Oliveira nee Dolly.

When England came to South Africa in 1956/57,their first test was in Newland Ground. Newlands Cricket Ground is in the shadow of Table Mountain. On the other side of the mountain is the city of Cape Town, the beach and the South Atlantic ocean. Ten kilometers away is Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held.

A man walked seven miles to get to Newlands to watch his country play. He walked through a city that was set up to keep him down. He walked, because people like him had to walk. When he arrived at the ground, he stood in the segregated part of the ground. The area that was for people of his color. We don’t know when this man was born, but we know that in ’56/57 he would
have been in his prime. There were rumors, stories and fables. But we were
not allowed to see him, and he was not allowed to play. Because this man was
standing where he was because he epitomised ‘The black threat’.

Like thousands of Colored Cricketers in South Africa, Basil D’Oliveira or ‘Dolly’ learnt to play on the streets. He was not allowed to play anywhere else. But he was different. He was a cricket champion wrapped in the wrong skin. Instead of
smashing first-class runs, he dominated the nonwhite cricket leagues.
He didn’t just make runs; he dominated teams.
He was the captain of nonwhite South Africa, the best of the ignored. The West Indies was supposed to tour with Frank Worrell to play against the nonwhite team. The tour was cancelled. It was then that D’Oliveira almost gave up cricket. There was no reason to keep playing. There was nothing left for him to do. He couldn’t make a living from it. He couldn’t represent his country.

Luckily a letter that he had sent to John Arlott, the English writer and
broadcaster, about playing professionally was passed on to the right people.
Lancashire journalist John Kay heard that Middleton in the Lancashire Leagues
was desperate for a player. The money was £450 for a year; £200 of that would
go on his fare out there. But D’Oliveira had a wife, and a young kid and cricket was his hope of a better life.

On arrival in England and playing for the first time in English conditions, he failed initially and was dismissed as a Saturday afternoon Slogger. But soon he was back to his best and went on a run making spree which surpassed even Gary Sobers, who was the standard against all foreign players were judged. From there he went from strength to strength and after spending the required years in England to qualify as English Cricketer he was duly selected to play for England.

After hist first two tours he was averaging above 50, but had a slump in 1968 tour of West Indies. Some called him a sell out for playing in an all white English team against his fellow colored West Indians. But the 1969 tour to South Africa was looming on the horizon.

Meanwhile The South African government were very worried about D’Oliveira. They knew that they couldn’t allow a coloured player to come back to South
Africa and play in another team. The South Africans also didn’t want anyone to know that they didn’t want him to tour. They even had a secret dossier made on him, and he was watched closely at all times.

By South African government, we’re not talking some lowly clerk: this was done by BJ Vorster, the South African Prime Minister. Think of this. In early 1968, with all that was going on the world – Vietnam war, black power protest in Olympics, the Martin Luther King assassination, the USSR invading the Czech Republic – and the leader of a country that was in turmoil amid trade sanctions was getting county cricket scores for political reasons.
They hatched a plan to bribe D’Oliveira. Or secretly get to the MCC
selectors and convince them not to pick him if they wanted the tour to go ahead.

Meanwhile D’Oliveira was working hard on his batting. He knew he hadn’t performed in the West Indies, and he worked hard to ensure his batting was back in top form. He did enough to keep his spot in the first Test against Australia. In that match he took two wickets, and scored an undefeated 87 against Australia.
On the morning of the second Test D’Oliveira was dropped. Two men, one being South African journalist EW Swanton, came to D’Oliveira and suggested he pull out of the tour to South Africa. He dismissed both men and went about his duty as 12th man before heading back to county cricket. Under enormous pressure runs dried up for him even in County Cricket. Meanwhile England managed to draw the second, third and fourth test.

At the end of Fourth test the MCC contacted the top 30 cricketers in the country to see if they were available for the South African tour. D’Oliveira was not contacted. That must have been the worst 87 in Test cricket history to get him dropped out of the best 30 players in the country.

Luckily an injury to a teammate earned him a call-up for the fifth Test. At 4/238, he walked out to bat. It was just before stumps. A huge Oval crowd was watching, The MCC was watching, The South African PM was watching.

Everyone wanted to see what would happen next.
D’Oliveira hooked. And made it to stumps 23 not out. The next day, he was dropped on 31. But his partner, John Edrich, and the umpire Charlie Elliott both egged him on. Once set, he did what he had always done – played aggressively – and made 158.
England won the Test; D’Oliveira broke a tricky sixth-wicket partnership as
well. Doug Insole, the MCC chairman of selectors, asked D’Oliveira if he was
available to tour South Africa. The English Captain Cowdrey made it clear he wanted him in his team. It now looked like he would have to be picked to play against his old country.

In the interim a message was passed to the MCC from South Africa
‘Today’s centurion is picked, the tour will be off.’ There were up to 10 people in the selection meeting. No one showed support for D’Oliveira’s selection. His Test batting average was 48. His bowling was handy. But he was not picked.

Then another player, Tim Cartwright, pulled out of the squad, possibly injured
– and D’Oliveira was finally selected to tour South Africa.

BJ Vorster told a rally of fellow racists, ‘We are and always have been
prepared to play host to the MCC … [we] are not prepared to receive a team
thrust upon us by people whose interests are not the game, but to gain certain
leverage upon us by people whose interests are not the game, but to gain certain political objectives which they do not even attempt to hide.’

The MCC promptly cancelled the 1968/69 tour.

What should have happened after this was that all teams stopped playing
South Africa. But Australia went there the following year and won.

Three years later in 1970 Australia would be back there. South Africa did not play a series in between. But that did not stop them from Blanking the Australians 4-0. Thus, they rightfully claimed the title for best team in the world.

South Africa weren’t so much banned from cricket. Tours just dried up.

Basil D’Oliveira took 551 first-class wickets at 27. But we never saw the best
of him. He once said of his time in South Africa, ‘I was some player then. I was
over the hill when I came to England.’

Racism stopped Jack Marsh from playing for Australia, George Headley
leading his country and D’Oliveira representing his. Racism also denied the rest of the world the opportunity to see how good the South African team of 1970 was.

During the Boycott of South Africa for it’s apartheid policy, there were many unsanctioned visit by test playing cricketer who formed rebel teams and visited South Africa to play cricket.  They were paid handsomely but were lambasted by public and press in general.

English ‘Rebel’ Teams toured South Africa in 1982 and 1989. The team was full
of English Test players, most notably future England captains Graham Gooch
and John Embrey, plus Geoffrey Boycott. They were easily beaten. In 1989,
Mike Gatting led another tour and was beaten again. Later he would once again play for England, and then become president of the MCC at the same time he promoted the ‘Spirit of Cricket’.

Australia sent two tours. Both times Kim Hughes took a team with Ashes
heroes Terry Alderman and Rodney Hogg. The Australian Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, called them traitors. They lost as well.

A Sri Lankan side went. Sri Lanka had only just come into Test cricket. The
rebel side they sent over was captained by their inaugural Test captain, Bandula Warnapura. They were hammered by the South Africans on the field. Smashed by the Asian and West Indian media off it. At home they were called traitors.
A promising youngster at that time, Arjuna Ranatunga originally tried to join the tour, but Warnapura said, ‘You are not going anywhere. You are too young to go and you have a long career ahead of you.’ It was Warnapura best decision for Sri Lankan cricket.

The West Indian rebel team included one of the fastest bowlers ever, Sylvester
Clarke; 1979 World Cup final star Collis King; and one of the original fast four,
Colin Croft, Franklyn Stephenson, and Richard ‘Danny Germs’ Austin, who only ever played two Tests. He was a fast bowler who was considered ahead of Andy Roberts and Malcom Marshall. After the rebel tour he spent 32 years of his life in pain, watching others play in the position which should have been his. He wasted his life on drugs and alcohol, largely because of one mistake- one tour.

Franklyn Stephenson was a proper fast bowler, and a decent batsman. He once
took more than 100 wickets and scored more than 1000 runs in a season of
county cricket. To get there, he made two centuries in the last match, and added 11 wickets. After the ‘Tour’ he struggles to get even coaching work. He never played a Test again.

The most notable is Colin Croft. Croft would have been remembered as a
legend. A man who bowled wide of the crease to aim the ball at a frightening angle at the batsman. In 27 Tests he took 125 wickets at 23. He could have been a legend. Instead he spent the rest of his life working in a supermarket.

All ‘Rebel’ players of West indies or Sri Lanka having dark skin were never to play any kind of Cricket again. Almost all the players were so traumatised when they returned that their lives never recovered, many spiralling viciously out of control, with drugs and alcohol their only crutch.
Some have tried to claim that they actually helped. That black South African
fans loved them. That they showed the white population that they weren’t
inferior; they even won. Plus they were part of the first bi-racial sporting event
in South Africa for a very long time. They were paid well, but they are still paying for it. They  were to pay the price of this mistake for the rest of their lives.

Because they knew what was happening in South Africa.
They knew. They knew and still they chose money over what is right and that is why they are the unforgiven.

While Mike Gatting can be forgiven by the rotten establishment and end
up as the face of Lord’s, the black players were held to a higher moral standard.
Especially by players and media of colour. Many consider it unfair in the difference in treatment of black and white rebel cricketer. But I don’t. The black players were held to a different moral standards as they should be. Just like the people who claim the higher moral ground and claim to be good persons. When they commit a mistake they must be held accountable to the higher standard they claim to belong to.

They are and will always remain the unforgivable.

Perhaps Mike Procter summed it up best, when he said ‘If 44 million people’s lives were improved by us not playing cricket for 22 years, then it was worth it.’