Struggle politics slows progress

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Lefty Adams’ spin took 122 wickets at 15.47 in 27 first-class matches, but he talks dead straight: “I’m 150% for Hassan Howa, but I have lost all respect for Basil D’Oliveira. We raised funds to send him to England, and he gave nothing back to our cricket.”

These complexities have been debated in Western Province cricket circles for the past 10 years, and are a major reason why some of SA’s modern greats are not recognised at one of the country’s most prominent cricket grounds.

Lingering unhappiness with Howa and D’Oliveira is why stands at Newlands have not been named in their honour - which has stalled similar accolades being awarded to Jacques Kallis as well as Peter and Gary Kirsten.

Sources say the WP Cricket Association (WPCA) called off a plan to unveil a Kallis stand during the third test against Australia in Cape Town three days before the match started on March 1. The WPCA say “there was no cancellation”.

D’Oliveira left SA in 1960 because, as a coloured living under apartheid, he was prevented from realising his potential at home. He played 44 tests for England and became one of the most prominent cricketers of his generation.

However, players D’Oliveira left behind in SA expected him to blaze a trail they could follow. A few did, but for most the injustice of living in SA meant their talents went unrecognised except in their own communities.

As president of the SA Council on Sport, Howa became a champion of SA’s isolation from international sport - which was influential in the dismantling of apartheid.

But he was deposed in 1975 after other administrators felt he was damaging the non-racial cause in his negotiations with white organisations in early efforts to achieve unity.

Like Adams, who played for WP in those days of racially segregated sport, former fast bowler Rushdie Magiet was a contemporary of Howa and D’Oliveira.

“Hassan did many things we didn’t agree with but we can’t hold that against him,” Magiet said. “He was not a sellout.”

“As for Basil, I’m 100% behind (honouring him). He made a terrific contribution and we have to acknowledge that. We cannot ignore what he did for cricket.”

Magiet, whose first-class record for WP features 109 wickets at 13.63 in 37 matches, had a taste of cricket’s wider world when he took 28 wickets at 20.25 for Todmorden in the Lancashire League in 1969. Adams played all of his cricket in SA.

The difference of opinion between Adams and Magiet, now among the elder statesmen of WP cricket and often seen in the president’s suite at Newlands, could be seen as cricket’s take on the latent friction between political exiles and activists who remained in the country during apartheid.

Andre Odendaal, the chief executive of the WPCA said “there was no cancellation” of plans to name a stand after Kallis.

“The idea of honouring Jacques was raised and is popular, but a process must be followed,” Odendaal said.

Kallis’ agent, Dave Rundle, said, ”There have been talks to do this. No time frame has been given, but they wanted to try and get it right for this (Australia) test.”