Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

thought that the inclusion of non-white players in all of the ‘home’ teams and declarations about the new bias for multi-racial cricket would herald in a fresh epoch in South African cricket. A statement was issued by the South African captain Eddie Barlow during the final match which said as much: The [South African] players … want to express their feelings of enthusiasm and honour at having been part of a new era in South African cricket … the games have shown that cricket knows no barriers and that the way is now open for South African cricket to be normalised as soon as possible. 97 It was, of course, not to be and whilst no doubt Benaud and the other participants in the tour were sincere in their hopes that it might be a watershed, and Barlow and the rest of the South African players were convinced that very real progress was being made, South African cricket was to have to wait another sixteen years before formally being welcomed back into the international cricket community. But no doubt unknown to Barlow and the rest, the institutionalised racism in the society was experienced in its starkest by their honorary white John Shepherd. Derek Underwood picks up the story: ‘A group of us were in a bar in a hotel in Durban and John was refused service by the barman when it was his turn to buy a round. I didn’t know how to handle it. John was furious and I was also very upset about it.’ Mike Denness also recalls the incident: ‘It was a serious problem which I brought to the attention of Richie Benaud who ensured that the culpable barman was dismissed by the hotel management’. 98 Shepherd acquitted himself well on the tour – the highlight being his dismissal of Richards, Pollock and Irvine as the South Africans slipped to 86 for six in their first innings in the last ‘mini-Test’ at Durban. In May 1976 the West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC) issued an unequivocal statement. They said that … all players from Caribbean territories under its jurisdiction who play cricket or coach in South Africa or Rhodesia will not be permitted to participate in matches organised under the auspices of the Board at home or abroad. In addition, the Board reaffirms that no official team from any country which tours South Africa or Rhodesia will be welcome in the West Indies… 99 In June 1976 the focus of the world’s attention was on South Africa when on the sixteenth of that month more than 200 black people were killed and countless hundreds injured when police opened fire on young protestors in Soweto. For those observers overseas, still in ignorance about apartheid and oppression in South Africa, these shocking events were an eye-opener – and for those who argued against playing sport in South Africa, or against Honorary White 79 97 Quoted in Andre Odendaal, Cricket in Isolation , Cape Town, published by its author, 1977. 98 Interviews with the author, October 2008. 99 Quoted in Hilary Beckles, The Development of West Indies Cricket: The Age of Nationalism , Pluto Press, 1998.