1982-7: Cricket worth remembering?

From the very start of reading and writing The Rebel Tours, the cricket itself has been a source of great fascination to me. As we have seen in previous weeks, the strength of the home side was easily equal to most Test nations and some great names visited the republic.

True, the matches were not the most important thing amidst the global outrage. But to my mind they are made more intriguing by the wider context. The volume of criticism outside South Africa was matched by the hype inside the country. What was the nature of the sport played in the eye of the storm?

The early tours were famously certainly modest. The first, in 1982 by an English squad, produced an on-field spectacle that made a mockery of the immense publicity. Despite the presence of four players who reside in the highest echelons of English cricket history – Graham Gooch, Geoffrey Boycott, Alan Knott and Derek Underwood – the tour was a lesson in preparation and cohesion. Pulled together at the last minute, they didn’t win a game although the South African Cricket Union, the government and the newspapers were relentlessly enthusiastic in championing authentic ‘international’ cricket.

The next series, South Africa versus Arosa Sri Lanka, was even worse. Under Test captain Bandula Warnapura and with internationals sprinkled through the side, the visitors were humiliated. For the home side Barry Richards took to getting himself out deliberately, so embarrassing were the claims to ‘international’ cricket. Still SACU fined those Springboks who publicly questioned their ‘international’ status.

Only in 1983 did things get interesting. It was then a popular view that the second and third best teams in world cricket were the West Indies 2nd XI and South Africa. So when Lawrence Rowe captained a team of Caribbean rebels the standard was ratcheted. The Springboks got a shock – after the facile successes against English and Sri Lankan opposition, the West Indians edged them out over two series. South African batsmen who had never before worn helmets changed their minds facing Colin Croft, Sylvester Clarke and Ezra Moseley.

By the time Kim Hughes’ Australians arrived in 1985/6, laying waste to Allan Border and the official side’s Ashes hopes in the process, the SACU hype machine was more or less out of control. Ali Bacher spluttered, ‘The public think Donald Bradman and his Invincibles are arriving.’

These two series were notable for a changing landscape in Cape cricket. Omar Henry made his Springbok debut. Amateur umpires went on strike in protest at Clive Rice’s hard-nosed “professionalism”. And South Africa experimented with fireworks and floodlights, not so much embracing the modern era as prodding it uncertainly. At one day-night ‘international’ an Australian batsman’s request to turn the floodlights on was met with official confusion. By the time the groundsman had been located at a car park braai, Rice had used his pacemen to skittle the Aussies in the half-darkness. The lights came on for the ‘Boks to claim an easy win.

A beacon of dignity throughout these latter series was Graeme Pollock. Where his contemporaries Richards, Mike Procter and Vince van der Bijl had retired, he endured. Ten years’ isolation had not harmed his position in the all-time averages. Nor had they weakened his immense power or hunger for runs. Aussie rebel Mike Haysman reported fielding a Pollock drive on the boundary and being knocked over the rope by the force of the shot. The left-hander was 42 years old.

Jimmy Cook, who with Peter Kirsten was alone in playing all 19 rebel ‘Tests’ says, ‘It’s sad that the kids of today don’t know how good Graeme Pollock was. I do a lot of coaching and I talk to kids about the good batsmen and they talk about Jacques Kallis and Herschelle Gibbs. And I say to them, “Guys, with all due respect, they’re not Graeme Pollock.”

‘Graeme Pollock was very, very special. He was just incredible, prone to getting out early but if you didn’t get him early on then you knew you were in huge trouble. He was just an amazing player, he hardly moved his feet – he had such an unbelievable eye and a sense of touch.’

Pollock accumulated 1376 unofficial ‘Test’ runs at over 65 – an average some 20 runs better than any team-mate including Cook, Kirsten and Rice. For better or worse the new challenge of rebel cricket provides an extra dimension to a career diminished by fate.

In truth there is no argument that the matches were at least first-class standard. A ‘Rebel Tours Select XI’ illustrates the strength of talent on display: Gooch, Richards, Alvin Kallicharran, Pollock, Rowe, Procter, Knott, Clarke, Underwood, Croft, Allan Donald.

That battle is wholly political and if the nay-sayers have a point they must acknowledge a discrepancy here: SACU-approved Currie Cup cricket is remembered in the first-class books (not to mention South Africa in Tests before 1970….) so why not SACU-approved ‘international exhibitions’?

However the claim to international status is utterly false. For one thing most of that Select XI is well past its best: only Gooch, Clarke and Donald would be better after the tours than before them. For another it is not enough to say that forgotten rebel stars such as Ajit de Silva, David Murray or Steve Smith might have had 50 Test caps. That is not how it works. They didn’t, and that is the end of it.

Most tellingly, nearly every leading player in the series recognised rebel cricket as a poor imitation of the real thing. The exceptions, such as Colin Croft’s demands for full international status for the rebel games, are praying for a forgiveness that will never come. Van der Bijl, one of the few leading South Africans not to get at least one cap before or after isolation, compares the rebel ‘Tests’ unfavourably with Currie Cup matches.

Nevertheless, beyond their status as statistical curios the 1980s rebel ‘internationals’ are worth remembering for at least three reasons:

1) Matches featuring so many illustrious names are a legitimate source of interest in the game’s history. They have not been detailed anywhere else and any self-respecting cricket tragic needs no bigger reason to take an interest;

2) At its best, the rebel cricket makes for a great story. In particular the series between South Africa and the West Indian XI, punctuated with brilliant on-field battles and off-field disputes, are games worth remembering;

3) “The cricket was not the point of the rebel tours” rather misses the point. Yes, much of the rebel cricket made a mockery of the off-field attention. But where it was farcical or futile, this is itself insightful and often wryly laughable. Compared to the immense hype South Africa afforded the rebel tours, the reality of the matches helps to explain the real reason for their taking place.

• A version of this article was first published by Cricket365.com on 17 November, 2009.

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1971-81: ‘God’s forgotten cricketers’

God - awfully busy.

As we saw last week, the 1970 Springboks were among the very best teams the world has known.

They were also among the most frustrated but could take two consolations: first, there were bigger issues at play. The South African team had to be picked on merit and a ban until that was achieved was fully deserved; secondly, the ‘Conquerors’ at least had their chance, albeit too brief.

As Barry Richards told us: ‘Isolation was a big disillusionment because your opportunity to prove yourself on the international stage was taken away. But I managed to get in four Tests – there were a lot of guys behind me who didn’t manage to play any.’

For the next generation, neither consolation stood firm. From the mid-1970s onwards the South Africa team was officially picked on merit. And if many non-white players would’ve refused the opportunity, cricket still remained far ahead of the rest of society. Most leading players felt the game had done all it could and that isolation was nothing more than political interference.

Nor could they take the consolation of even a few international caps. By 1981, a decade after isolation began, only three men with Springbok colours remained at the forefront of the game: Richards, Mike Procter and Graeme Pollock. The uncapped remainder were known as “God’s forgotten cricketers”.

Yet the strength of South African cricket was still inescapable. Richards and Procter had become legends in England, excelling in the county championship for Hampshire and Gloucestershire respectively. In 1977-79 the pair had also enjoyed the unexpected bonus of World Series Cricket – an arena where Garth Le Roux, Clive Rice and 30-Test veteran Eddie Barlow had all excelled, as they did for Sussex, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.

Never was this strength shown more vividly than in the case of Vintcent van der Bijl. A school teacher who played as a Currie Cup amateur through the 1970s, he was virtually unknown upon joining Middlesex for a one-summer swansong in 1980. Aged 32, and with no experience outside South Africa, he took 85 wickets at under 15 apiece in a title-winning side. Suddenly his record-breaking domestic record merited consideration.

Asked about the outstanding players eclipsed by isolation, one name stands out for Richards: ‘Vince van der Bijl is one outstanding example of somebody who would have been a wonderful international player.’

By 1981 South Africa were surely inferior to the West Indies (although no-one would ever find out for sure) but fancied their chances against any other side. Neither India nor Pakistan could replicate their home form abroad while England and Australia were ravaged by Packer splits.

It was a popular view at the time that the second best team in the world was Barbados (Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Collis King, David Murray, Franklyn Stephenson, Malcolm Marshall, Ezra Moseley, Sylvester Clarke, Joel Garner……). But the Currie Cup offered its own provincial challenger: the Transvaal ‘Mean Machine’, which won seven titles between 1978 and 1988.

‘I think Transvaal in 1981/2 could have taken on almost any national team,’ says van der Bijl. ‘I mean our team was Jimmy Cook, Henry Fotheringham, Alvin Kallicharran, Graeme Pollock, Kevin MacKenzie, Clive Rice, Alan Kourie, Ray Jennings, ‘Spook’ Hanley, myself and Neil Radford. And then Sylvester Clarke took my place for the next year and probably even strengthened the team.

‘If you go back to what could be regarded as South Africa’s greatest gift to Test cricket – the 100-run partnership in an hour against Australia in Durban between Pollock and Richards in 1970, that was just an extraordinary hour, and we would have had lots of those.

‘And “Prockie” would have got lots of seven-fers, and Ray Jennings would have been an amazing wicketkeeper, and Peter Kirsten… Ah man we had some great players.’

One of the few leading South Africans not to be tempted to Johannesburg by Ali Bacher was Western Province paceman Le Roux, but he has no hesitation in backing up those sentiments: ‘South African cricket at that time was of a particularly high standard I thought. There were some names there that could play. And I was lucky enough to play county cricket in England and that Packer series so I’d seen what the best in the world looks like and I’d bowled at it.

‘I’d bowled at Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge and Ian Botham and whoever else, so I had a pretty fair idea of what the best in the world was like and our cricket didn’t have to stand back to anybody at that particular time. That Mean Machine and our Western Province team that challenged… and all the Currie Cup teams were highly competitive with some fantastic cricketers.’

After ten years in isolation South African cricket was desperate to test itself: overseas their players laid triumph upon triumph, breaking record after record; at home, any South Africa team would be picked on merit so they saw exclusion as the height of hypocrisy. Many fans, players and administrators knew their would-be Springbok team off by heart: Cook, Richards, Kirsten, Pollock, Rice, Procter……

But the ICC had said that they could never return to Test cricket until apartheid was dismantled. It seemed impossible to all but Bacher. The former Springbok skipper had other ideas. He knew the arguments that “God’s forgotten South Africans” were neither white nor cricketers but felt his responsibility was to the game. If the ICC wouldn’t allow his men through the front door, he’d have to find a way through the back.

• A version of this article was first published by Cricket365.com on 10 November, 2009. It is part of a series explaining how the rebel tours came about. It is certainly not a validation of the ludicrous phrase “God’s forgotten cricketers”.

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Hand of Godberford

James Tissot (1836-1902). The artist's impression of Trent Bridge groundstaff as Wilton-Godberford unleashes his wrath.

It is a great injustice of our times that David Wilton-Godberford is not a household name. In another dimension, a better time and place, there are books written about him, songs sung about him, documentaries voiced by Stephen Fry and featuring whimsical recollections from Stuart Maconie broadcast about him.

For Wilton-Godberford is the greatest folk hero we never had; the architect of perhaps the wittiest, most outrageous protest action ever devised in the United Kingdom.

It was May, 1970 and the South Africa cricket team were due to arrive within weeks. The Springboks represented the ultimate test in world cricket. They had just whitewashed Australia 4-0 and, five years before the inaugural World Cup, were the unofficial champions of the world.

Unfortunate term, though, ‘whitewashed’ because the ‘Boks were, to a man, all white. Not by chance or even bias but by law. South Africa was the land of apartheid, of official and institutional white supremacy. The cricket world could hardly forget. It had been the celebrated D’Oliveira affair that had brought apartheid to the public’s attention in 1968. And for two years the world had waited and watched English cricket.

Would they (could they?) welcome the whites-only Springboks for an official Test series as if nothing had happened? The establishment seemed to think so but the anti-apartheid movement had other ideas. For a year the Stop the Seventy Tour group had disrupted visiting Springbok teams by invading tennis courts and rugby pitches, hijacking team coaches and gluing hotel doors shut.

 They had similar plans for the cricketers but Wilton-Godberford threatened to take it to a new level. Times cricket correspondent John Woodcock filed a story from North Wales reporting that Wilton-Godberford, a London University student, intended to make a “personal protest”.

And this was something altogether different to linking arms and working through the playlist of Song to a Seagull, or handcuffing himself to the Twickenham posts. Wilton-Godberford was a biology scholar, but obviously not adverse to allying his Darwin with reading of an older vintage where the occasion called for it. As Woodcock reported, he had threatened to unleash 500,000 locusts on the playing fields of England if the tour were to proceed.

Now whatever you think about direct action protesting, you have to admit that this is a bold gambit: ambitious, media friendly and, perhaps above all, practicable. If you really want to pull off that Old Testament ‘wow factor’ on limited resources then locusts are the way to go. Turning rivers to blood is a big ask, hail mixed with fire attracts public disapproval, and deaths of the first born sons would deprive future generations of Shaun Pollock.

DWG himself was quoted thus: “They will ravage every blade of grass and green foliage. The greatest care will be taken to ensure that they are in the correct physiological stage. So that their insatiable appetites will not be impaired they will not be fed for 24 hours before the moment of truth. The crack of a solid army of locusts feeding on the grass will sound like flames.”

Or, to put it another way: “There had never been so many locusts, nor would there be so many again. For they covered the surface of the whole land, so that the land was darkened; and they ate every plant of the land and all the fruit of the trees that the hail had left. Thus nothing green was left on tree or plant of the field through all the land of Egypt.”

Wilton-Godberford never had to make good on his threat. The tour was cancelled and South Africa quickly exiled from international sport. The 1970 Springboks were disbanded and they watched the 1975 World Cup from their living rooms.

By that time the whites-only Springbok policy had been thrown out with teams picked on a ‘multi-racial’ basis. But it was too late. The Springboks would not be allowed to return to international cricket until apartheid itself was dismantled. It would be another 12 years before the Springbok emblem was worn on the cricket field – and only then in sparking a new and vociferous controversy that rocked cricket and the world far beyond.

• A version of this article was first published by Cricket365.com on 24 June, 2008. ‘Plan to disrupt cricket tour with locusts’ by John Woodcock appeared in The Times on 11 May, 1970. The tour was cancelled 11 days later, a week before Ali Bacher’s side was due to arrive.

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