Basil D’Oliveira: far more than a cricketing hero...

There is a rare category of sportsman who comes to signify something very much greater and more profound than merely sport. One example is the immortal black American athlete Jesse Owens, whose string of gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics did so much to upset Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

Another who falls in that category is Basil D’Oliveira. Yet his secret was his sheer ordinariness. Though a very fine cricketer, he was modest, discreet, immaculately well mannered, and had no burning interest in politics. He never chose to become a hero and never sought to be a symbol of anything. But destiny singled him out to play the central role in the most important sporting controversy of modern times.

And when put to the ultimate test, he responded to unbelievable pressure with a quiet dignity that spoke volumes.

 Back in the 1960s, the majority of the British sporting public had never given so much as a passing thought to the terrible injustice of South African apartheid. But when they saw this quiet, unassuming man banned from playing the sport he loved just because of the colour of his skin, the British people gave their hearts to Basil D’Oliveira because they sensed that something was badly wrong. Full story...

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