UNFORGIVEN FOR SA TOURS

DESPITE Covid, touring South Africa this winter has been a straightforward exercise for England, as it has been for every other international team since their readmission in 1991.

However, for those who came to this country during apartheid when touring was banned by the ICC from 1970, it was anything but.

Those persuaded to go on ‘rebel’ tours were paid handsomely for what many considered a betrayal. But while English players who toured were given bans of three years, the West Indies tourists were given lifetime bans amid huge controversy.

That controversy continues to this day and in Ashley Gray’s outstanding book Unforgiven (below) – shortlisted for today’s William Hill Sports Book Of The Year – he tells the stories of those black men who made trips in 1982-3 and 1983-4.

Some of the stories, such as that of the late Richard Austin, who died destitute and who Gray literally met in a Kingston gutter are jarring – and he was not the only one to suffer. Herbert Chang, a cocky Jamaican batsman has had problems with mental illness and hard times, while skipper Lawrence Rowe (above, with South Africa’s Gary Kirsten) has since lived in self-imposed exile in Miami.

Gray does not attempt to absolve these men of their decision that cost them far more than money, but says their stories needed to be told and, as a result, Chang is to receive support from the Jamaican Cricket Association.

Gray said: “It was tough getting the book together and initially many didn’t want to talk, but Austin’s death really hit me and I’m glad to have told these stories.”