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Published by Barrie and Jenkins, 1988, hardcover, illustrated, 274 pages, condition: new.
The story of how Basil D'Oliveira defied South African Apartheid, escaped from the backstreets of 1950s Cape Town and eventually came to play cricket for England is one of the great sporting adventures. And yet its consequences went far beyond sport. The DOliveira Affair of 1968, when South Africa banned the touring England side because of the inclusion of a black man, marked the start of the twenty-year sporting isolation of South Africa and helps part helped spark the end of Apartheid itself.
As a cricketer, DOliveira achieved legendary status in his native Cape Town as a batsman of great power and a highly effective bowler. In England he amassed nearly 19,000 first-class runs and took more than 500 wickets. He represented his adopted country in 44 tests between 1966 and 1972, scoring 2,484 runs and taking 47 wickets. And this despite not playing a full English county season until 1965, when he was approaching his mid-thirties.
This important book contains a devastating account of the way the English cricketing and political establishment conspired with the Vorster government in an attempt to keep D'Oliveira out of the England side, and places DOliveiras story in the context of the great battle for racial equality in the second-half of the 20th century.
