D’Oliveira move to England made Arlott proud

LONDON, (Reuters) – Although he did not speak about  it often, my father regarded bringing Basil D’Oliveira to  England as the single act he was most proud of in his life.

It was an act that was to help bring an end to apartheid in  South Africa, a system my father first witnessed while  commentating on the 1948-49 England tour of the country.

My father slipped away from his wealthy hosts in the white  suburbs of Johannesburg and in the black townships saw a poverty  he had never before witnessed. He found evil a system that could  deny a man the vote and condemn him to a life of poverty just  because of the colour of his skin.

He was thus probably bound to be receptive when, in the late  1950s, he started receiving polite letters from a mixed-race  South African cricketer he had never met called Basil  D’Oliveira.

In his autobiography Time to Declare, Basil said he  decided to write to my father because “his voice and the words  he spoke convinced me he was a nice, compassionate man”.

Basil had scored 80 centuries in nine years of non-white  cricket and had once taken nine for two with the ball. But  county club secretaries would turn him down for a place saying:  “Yes, but against unknown opposition on matting wickets.”

My father would point out that as a Cape Coloured in South  Africa it was certain to be against “unknown opposition” unless  they gave him a chance. Through my father’s persuasion a  journalist colleague called John Kay eventually got Basil a  contract as one of the professionals for the Middleton Cricket  Club in the Lancashire League.

Basil had a difficult start. At first he scored few runs in  the cold and on the totally different pitches of Lancashire. The  story might have ended there had his talent not won through.

POLITICAL FOOTBALL

My father saw his efforts rewarded beyond all expectations  when, after a few seasons playing for Worcestershire, Basil was  picked for England against West Indies in 1966.

In the winter of 1968 England were due to tour South Africa.  The South African authorities had already made it clear through  roundabout contacts that they would not be happy to receive an  England side containing a Cape Coloured South African.

Despite making 87 not out in the second innings of the first  test against Australia that year, Basil was dropped.

By the final test against Australia Basil had still not won  back his place but, at the last moment, Roger Prideaux pulled  out and Basil was chosen to replace him. He scored 158 and took  a crucial wicket in the Australian second innings but still was  not picked for the team to tour South Africa.

My father knew what was going on and was angry but he also  knew that the facts would speak for themselves. Stoked by his  pieces in The Guardian, by newspaper articles by other  journalists and politicians, a fire of complaint was raging and,  when Tom Cartwright said he was unfit to tour, Basil was chosen  to replace him. South African Prime Minister John Vorster described Basil as  “a political football” and refused to accept the side. The tour  was cancelled. Basil wept at the injustice when he was left out  of the side. He kept a dignified silence during the political  rows and campaigning that followed but he was with the  anti-apartheid campaigners because it was he who once again was  being stopped from playing because of the colour of his skin.

Before the South Africans were due in England 18 months  later, Peter Hain’s ‘Stop the South Africa Tour’ campaign was in  full swing and my father told the BBC that he did not wish to  commentate on the tour.

Eventually the Labour government cancelled the South African  tour because of fears of public disorder and South Africa’s long  period of ostracism from international sport had begun. What effect other countries’ refusal to play South Africa  had on public opinion in a sports-mad country we shall never  know, but it must certainly have had an impact.
My father’s role in helping to get Basil invited to England  in 1960 must surely have been one link in the long chain of events that resulted in Nelson Mandela’s release from Robben  Island 30 years later and the abolition of apartheid in 1991.

It was one of the few things that still brought him pleasure during the chronic ill health he endured before he died in December of the same year.