Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Man out of time was master batsman
Those who remember the sporting 1970s are acutely aware of a travesty the cricket world has largely forgotten – Barry Richards, a cricketing genius. He has now come to an uneasy truce with his sense of fulfilment and an acceptance that he will be forever
ANOTHER controversial episode took place in England, at Headingley in the fourth Test between England and South Africa in 2003. For the first time in their history, South Africa took the field with two black players spearheading the new-ball attack, Makhaya Ntini and Monde Zondeki.
“I was commentating with Mark Nicholas at the time,” remembered Barry, “and he asked me whether I was pleased to see how well integration was working in South Africa, seeing as two black guys were opening the bowling. Of course I was pleased but I said that the fact that we happened to have a black pair of opening bowlers was not evidence that the system was working at all.
“It wasn’t. What the country needed was not some sort of tokenism but a fully integrated policy of identifying talent, pooling resources efficiently and putting the financial backing, which is considerable, into these academies, nurseries, elite schools – call them what you will – rather than just pouring money indiscriminately into the grassroots of the game and hoping that Test players will grow. Well, you can imagine that my comments went down like a lead balloon with the powers-that-be.”
His was a considered point of view, one that he adheres to strongly even today, but it did not sit easily with the political ethos of Cricket South Africa, the governing body of the game. “I was sacked by text,” Barry said grimly, “even though I apologised if I had inadvertently offended anyone. After five years’ employment. I don’t think SuperSport initially had a problem with my comments. But Cricket South Africa certainly did. Well, I guess political pressure was applied and I got the boot.” Since then, he has tried to build bridges. “But they’re not interested. They probably feel I’ve passed my sell-by date. It’s all a bit sad really.”
The lack of black cricketers who make it through to the Test team remains a besetting problem in South Africa. “Zondeki – where did he go?” was Barry’s cry. “Another one was a guy called Ngam. He was quick, man. I saw him bowl against New Zealand and he had genuine pace. But he was another one who seemed to disappear without trace.” Barry pondered the reason. He speculated that it might have been because they – and one or two others – were not willing, or not able, to assume the mantle of pioneers of fully integrated cricket in the way that Ntini has. Correct or not in his assumptions, Barry is convinced that the money being flung at the troublesome question is misdirected. And for his views, he is excommunicated. A man with a world of experience deserves at the very least to be heard.
And here seeps a running sore, one that does not just upset Barry but many others who have the game of cricket in South Africa close to their hearts. For many it is a sad fact that the numbers that the current South African Test players wear on their shirts date from 1991, when the country was welcomed back into the international fold after full integration. Thus, number one is Kepler Wessels, the captain of the team that played in the first Test since reintegration, against the West Indies. In point of fact, he is the 246th player to have represented South Africa. “And number two? Do you know who that is?” cried Barry, with understandable exasperation. Indeed, I did not.
“Mark Rushmere.” Well I never. So you, Procter, Pollock, Barlow, Bland, to say nothing of the likes of Dudley Nourse, Athol Rowan, Hugh Tayfield, Jackie McGlew, John Waite, Roy McLean, Neil Adcock and Trevor Goddard – none of you played for South Africa? “It seems not. We’ve been airbrushed from history.”
While the new South Africa is a functioning democracy, a beacon of hope for the rest of that continent, by not honouring the contributions of its white cricketers, albeit from a less enlightened age, Cricket South Africa is doing itself, and its country, a huge disservice. After all, what was the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up to do but to confront and to come to terms with the past? As Desmond Tutu said, “You cannot forgive what you do not know.” To excise from history those 245 cricketers is not confronting its past; it is pretending that it did not exist. Thus that famous series in 1970 against the Australians never took place. The memorable stand between Richards and Pollock at Kingsmead was but a figment of the imagination. Wisden tells me otherwise. But Cricket South Africa is trying to convince me that these great players, and their predecessors, did not play Test matches for their country.
Indubitably, this is “doublespeak”. Barry does not want to kick at the hornets’ nest, not wishing to whip up a turbulence of recrimination and thereby stand accused of bearing grudges. He just shrugs his shoulder at the slight. Just one of many, it seems to imply.
But his friends and former colleagues, those whom I have interviewed during my research for this book, have privately encouraged me to speak out on behalf of The Forgotten. Far be it for me to act as an apologist for what went before, in the dark days of apartheid, but that was then. This is now. And it seems to me that the shabby manner in which these past players have been treated is unworthy of any selfrespecting board of control. I am not alone in my dismay, far from it. Others, closer placed and better informed, have taken up the cudgels. I recently unearthed an article by RW Johnson, the South Africa correspondent for The Sunday Times, which appeared in The Standpoint Magazine a couple of years ago. In it, he berates the controllers upstairs in the offices of Cricket South Africa for its vindictive treatment of their country’s former players.
He attempts to compare the legendary 1970 Springbok team with the current side, always an interesting exercise, but one that is inevitably subjective. But in one regard, the difference is starkly illuminated. The current crop are lionised, respected and hugely rewarded. The 1970 veterans – amateurs all, let us remember – are shunned, excluded, frozen out. Some of them have fallen on hard times and were it not for the efforts of friends and wellwishers, they may just as easily have fallen into destitution and penury. And Cricket South Africa does not even lift a finger to help.
The irony of it is that many cricketers of that generation did their best, in a climate of fear and repression, to make their feelings known about the inequity of segregated sport, encouraging the government at every opportunity to soften their stance. The famous walk-off in 1971 by Barry and Mike Procter and the rest of the team was cited by Johnson as evidence of the liberal leanings of those players. And for this, the Pollocks et al are cold-shouldered by the present administration. Johnson calls this a “scurvy treatment of old heroes” and goes on to list a shocking catalogue of indignities and kicks in the teeth.
Roy McLean, a South African batsman of the 1950s, enjoyed being invited back for Test matches but when he requested a ticket for his wife because, as an old man, he needed looking after, his request was refused and he was told that people like him were “beyond the pale”. Lee Irvine confirmed that his privileges such as free seats at Test matches had been withdrawn. Jimmy Cook and Kevin McKenzie offered to help with coaching but were just told, “It’s our time now.”
And there wasn’t a man jack in that 1970 side, asserts Johnson, who voted for the government and apartheid. “When it was recently proposed that a stand at Newlands cricket ground in Cape Town be named after Basil D’Oliveira, this was vetoed on the grounds that D’Oliveira had refused to follow the ANC party line.” All the honours boards in all the Test match venues have been removed, as well as all the old photos of past players.
And Barry and his colleagues are forever caught in the middle. I asked him whether any of this rang true. The reference to the mooted D’Oliveira Stand jogged his memory. “Bryan Waddell, the New Zealand commentator, was on air at one of the South Africa Tests. ‘What’s all this with naming stands over here after maps? You know, North, East, South, West?
“‘Why can’t you guys name stands after heroes like Graeme Pollock and Barry Richards?’ Well, the silence at the back was deafening. Everybody was curled up with embarrassment. He’d said the unsayable, you see.”