ABSTRACT
Any study of history looks for key moments around which the author can structure his or her work, can link cause to effect or can make comparisons with the past. There are many such key moments in the social and political chronology of South African cricket. One could go back to 1894 and the exclusion of the coloured Hendricks from the South African team to tour England (a result of ‘the greatest pressure by those in high authority in the Cape Colony’1) as the first obvious sign of racism within the sport. The era of ‘English-speaking’ hegemony brought with it its own racial attitudes and approaches to the ethnic character of cricket. An examination of the apartheid years provides us with details of how the game was structured during periods of formal segregation. South Africa’s expulsion from the Imperial Cricket Council (ICC)2 in 1961 because of its withdrawal from the British Commonwealth recognized its cricket team as a Commonwealth concern. The same team became renowned on the international stage in 1968 when its government refused to accept Basil D’Oliveira as a member of the MCC touring party because of the colour of his skin.
