Son of Signal Hill

Basil D’Oliveira was born in the Bo-Kaap on October 4 1931 and played his early cricket on the field now known as Green Point Common, which was open to “nonwhites”. Despite his prodigious skill he was never able to play at Newlands. He moved to the UK in 1960 to play first-class cricket and was selected for England’s tour of South Africa in 1968. Pretoria refused to accept his inclusion in the test squad and the tour was cancelled by the English, starting a worldwide sports boycott that helped end apartheid. He died in the UK on November 19 2011