A gentleman cricketer….

Immaculate tachnique from a master craftsman

The death of Basil D’Oliveira this week brought back a welter of memories.  I was immediately reminded of how my dad revered him and that it wasn’t difficult for a cricket mad ten-year-old in the sixties to see why.  There was an almost ethereal grace about D’Oliveira, a man who had lost possibly the best playing years of his life to the insanities of apartheid and been forced to move to England in order to play first class cricket yet seemed, on the surface at least, unscarred by the experience.  When the MCC bowed to pressure from the South African government and dropped D’Oliveira from the 1968-9 England side to ensure the tour would proceed, politicians and the media condemned the Lords authorities for their racism by proxy in a heartening display that spoke volumes about a Britain in transition.  It’s worth remembering that this was soon after Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of blood’ speech, a time of overt racism and it was episodes like this that began to turn the tide and led inevitably to South Africa’s years of sporting isolation.

Most of all though, I remember the way he played cricket, unfussy, technically brilliant but with a distinct edge of steel.  I would play cricket for hours with dad at Hadleigh Park in Essex trying to emulate D’Oliveira’s poise at the crease, his immaculate foot work, eye on the ball, standing tall, straight bat and back.  Unfortunately, I failed in my endeavours but knew that this was a cricketer worthy of respect.  Only now, perhaps, do we realise just how much respect.