Africa is a Country

When British journalist Peter Oborne’s Basil d’Oliveria: Cricket and Controversy (published by Little Brown), first came out four years ago, I found it a gripping read. The book is an account of the life of one of the most outstanding test cricketers off the twentieth century. So I feel kind of bummed that I can’t see BBC4′s new documentary on him showing tonight. If you don’t know his story, D’Oliveira was born as a coloured in Cape Town, and was forced to leave apartheid South Africa to continue his career playing English County Cricket. He settled in the UK and was later picked for the English national team. In 1968, in top form, during the final test in a series against Australia, he scored 158, but was then excluded from the England team to tour South Africa because of his race (the South African government and cricket authorities would not allow it). The result was a political scandal that not only further exposed the true nature of Apartheid, but also the complicity between England’s cricket establishment and South Africa’s apartheid regime. I just got word of tonight’s BBC4 screening, Not Cricket: The Basil D’Oliveira Conspiracy. Hopefully I can get a copy sometime. For now, I will console myself with the film’s website here that contains a pictorial tribute, an interview with the director and some background articles. [BTW, another South African cricketer with a dubious record, the postapartheid captain Hansie Cronje, who took bribes to fix international matches, died in a plane crash and is now the subject of a campaign by his brother to rescue his "legacy," is the subject of another documentary in the series, The Bookmaker and the Captain.]