Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

different decision, but by 1982 not only were the times different but the sanctions that would have been placed on him and the censure that would have followed in his home country would not have made it worth it – even for that much money. 104 The story of the world of cricket’s involvement with South Africa in the years between the D’Oliveira affair in 1968 and South Africa’s return to international cricket in 1991 is complex and even today it is a source of differences of opinion. The quote from the Wisden anthology at the head of this chapter surely summarises it well. It is fair to say that, like Wisden , few cricketers, cricket administrators, cricket-loving public figures or even journalists saw at the time that C.L.R.James’ famous question ‘What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?’ should have applied unequivocally in any analysis of South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. The exceptions, John Arlott, Mike Brearley and the Rev David Sheppard amongst them, had the moral high ground at the time and hindsight has proved them to be right. And Peter Hain, the bête noire of the establishment back in 1970, was right as well when he said about apartheid: ‘ … if you do not resolutely oppose it, then you support it … ’. But back in 1973, John Shepherd was surrounded not by those who could see the relevance and moral authority of the Jamesian maxim, nor by his Bajan peers and potential sources of advice back home in Barbados. Shep was playing for Kent where his mentors were Les Ames and Colin Cowdrey whose firm convictions were clear from Cowdrey’s later comment about the 1973 Robins tour: ‘I applaud [Robins’] zeal in trying to maintain cricket links with South Africa.’ 105 Furthermore Cowdrey said that on this tour John Shepherd and Younis Ahmed ‘ … were accorded the normal courtesies and were well received’. Ames said on his return from the tour: We experienced no apartheid problems at all. There were no protests or demonstrations, and the whole tour went very well indeed. Shepherd proved the most popular player in the side. Both he and Younis got wonderful receptions wherever they went, but Shepherd especially so ... we played multi-racial cricket on our side against teams who were all white, all black or all cape coloured. 106 The improbability, indeed impossibility, of the South African authorities not extending the ‘normal courtesies’ to John Shepherd ( i.e. by not making him an honorary white) and the hypocrisy of all this seems not to have occurred to Cowdrey. Similarly the irony of the fact that whilst the Robins team was ‘multi-racial’ the teams that they played against were not seems not to have been apparent to Ames! Today John Shepherd does not feel that Ames, Cowdrey and Co deliberately misled him – but he acknowledges 82 Honorary White 104 The rebel West Indies tour went ahead in January and February 1983. A below strength side, under Lawrence Rowe’s captaincy, played twelve matches – the seventeen players involved received life bans – which were rescinded in 1989. 105 Colin Cowdrey, M.C.C.: The Autobiography of a Cricketer , Hodder and Stoughton, 1976. 106 Interview with John Evans in Kent Messenger , 28 December 1973.