that cricket is supposed to stand for everything that is decent and upstanding in the world, it is remarkable how often down the years that the ‘sport of gentlemen’ has found itself embroiled in bitter controversies and rancour. It is also surprising how these disagreements quickly escalate far beyond the field of play – even in some cases leading to governmental involvement. Surprising, that is, until you consider the framework of international cricket, and how the sport was taken from the United Kingdom to the far-flung corners of the globe in the first place.
For that, we need to travel back to the time to what was supposedly the glorious age of the British Empire. Glorious for Britain, certainly, but not quite so much fun for those who suddenly found themselves conquered (‘discovered’ in some cases) and ruthlessly exploited as the developing European countries set about expanding their global trade.
Britain was not alone. The Dutch were particularly keen rivals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and evidence of their overseas occupations can be found on the cricket fields of Sri Lanka and South Africa today. Sri Lanka’s Burgher people are a Eurasian ethnic group formed by the union of predominantly Dutch settlers and local Sinhalese women. Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka vice-captain, is a member of the Burgher community. So too are Graeme Labrooy and the towering Michael Vandort, scorer of two laboured centuries against England in 2006 and 2007, who at six foot five must be the tallest-ever Sri Lankan Test cricketer. Meanwhile, descendants of the first Dutch colonists are regular members of the South Africa cricket team, and there is dedicated television and radio commentary broadcast throughout the Republic in Afrikaans, the guttural language that evolved from Dutch into a daughter language. Ewie Cronje, father of South Africa’s disgraced former captain Hansie Cronje, whose Huguenot ancestors took part in the Great Trek away from British rule in the 1830s, is one such specialist commentator.
The French and the Portuguese were also busily establishing overseas trading posts but following the defeat of Napoleonic France in 1815 Britain enjoyed a century of almost unchallenged dominance, to the point that by 1922 almost a quarter of the globe and a fifth of the world’s population was ruled by the United Kingdom. (It is worth bearing in mind that this did not include the United States of America, which had successfully fought for its independence by 1783.) Wherever Britain ruled, cricket was played, and all the Test-playing nations – Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies and Zimbabwe – were former colonies within the British Empire. All but Zimbabwe are still associated with the UK through membership of the Commonwealth.
Bloody conflicts were usually Britain’s answer to putting down local insurgency, and these have left deep scars in the history of the Empire. Britain was responsible for much of the slave trade that transported Africans in the most ghastly conditions imaginable to the Caribbean to work on the sugar plantations. While African slaves worked in the fields cutting corn, Asians were shipped in from the Indian subcontinent to become the white-collar workers of the time. The resulting division between the two racial groups is responsible for serious antagonism in countries such as Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago today.
A drive along the potholed roads of Antigua to the little town of Liberta, which lies to the south of the island, is a reminder of those early days, for this is the settlement that was established by the first freed slaves in 1835. Meanwhile, on Barbados, on the main highway from the airport you will encounter the Emancipation Statue, which dramatically portrays a muscle-bound Afro-Caribbean slave stripped to the waist and staring skywards with a broken chain dangling from each wrist. The locals call him Bussa, after a legendary figure in the island’s history who helped inspire a revolt against slavery in 1816. Lining the highway is a succession of roundabouts dedicated to notable politicians and great Barbadian cricketers like Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Everton Weekes and the first black captain of West Indies, Sir Frank Worrell. I wonder if the planners ever intended that this series of roundabouts on such a friendly island should illustrate just how closely the Caribbean’s unhappy history is associated with cricket. Little surprise, then, that some opponents of the mighty West Indies sides in the 1970s and 80s believed that seeking revenge for the past lay behind the hostility of the most feared battery of fast bowlers there has ever been – that it was racially motivated, in other words. The West Indian players of the time deny this absolutely, pointing out that they were as driven and aggressive when they played against India and Pakistan, for example, as they were against England or Australia. Geoffrey Boycott, who stood in their way many times as an opening batsman, states categorically that he never heard a racist comment, or felt racially intimidated. Nevertheless, I am sure they gained a lot of motivation from their identity and great pride from being the first predominantly Afro-Caribbean team to sit on top of the world, relishing the new-found respect that came with it.
When the British claimed South Africa from the Dutch in 1806, they discovered a colony that was already established strictly along racial lines. The abolition of slavery in 1834 proved to be the final straw for the Boer settlers, who, in their frustration at British rule, began their migration inland from the Cape on what became known as the Great Trek. They established Afrikaner strongholds, which developed into Boer republics in the Transvaal and Orange Free State, thus setting out the background for the two Boer Wars against the British in the late nineteenth century. During the second (1899–1902) an estimated twenty-eight thousand Boers – many of them women and children – died in appalling conditions in concentration camps set up by the British, whose victory established the Union of South Africa, a dominion of the British Empire. In 1931 it gained its independence from Britain.
With racial segregation already implemented to some degree under colonial rule, independence enabled stricter laws to be imposed by the National Party, culminating in the establishment of apartheid in 1948 and the classification of people into four racial groups (‘native’, ‘white’, ‘coloured’ and ‘Asian’). Every part of everyday life was affected by apartheid, including cricket. The whites had their own cricket board, the South African Cricket Association (SACA), and only white players could represent South Africa. Non-whites were welcome to watch, but had to do so in segregated parts of the cricket grounds. Despite South Africa’s opposition in those days being exclusively from England, Australia and New Zealand (i.e. white), the non-white spectators usually vented their feelings by supporting the visitors. The D’Oliveira affair of 1968 (discussed at length later in this chapter) highlighted the true horror of apartheid to the world. The sporting isolation of South Africa contributed strongly to the dismantling of that abhorrent political system, and cricket played a leading role.
Over the border, in what is now Zimbabwe, the British formed the colony of Southern Rhodesia in 1895. This became simply Rhodesia when the then Prime Minister Ian Smith declared unilateral independence from Britain in 1965. The Republic of Rhodesia was proclaimed in 1970 but was recognized only by its neighbour South Africa until full independence from Britain was gained after years of civil war, known as the Bush War, and Zimbabwe was formed in 1980. Zimbabwe appeared in the 1983 Cricket World Cup, famously beating Australia by 13 runs at Trent Bridge, and played its first Test match in 1992.
The Indian subcontinent was inextricably linked with the British Empire for centuries. Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, was ruled by the British from 1815, when once again they ousted the Dutch, and then imported up to a million Tamils from southern India to work in the tea and coffee plantations for which Sri Lanka is famous. The local Buddhist and Sinhalese population believed that their British rulers showed favouritism towards the Tamil immigrants, creating a schism between the communities. Caused directly by colonialism, this produced a long-running conflict and a civil war lasting twenty-five years that has cost an estimated hundred thousand lives and led to accusations of human-rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were apparently wiped out in 2009.
If anyone still harbours any doubts about the domination of the British Empire, then India, which had to be split into three countries, provides the most obvious and richest legacy. Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) are the direct results of colonialism, having been formed by the partition of British India on the basis of religious demographics.
