Lives in Cricket No 10 - John Shepherd

that he was useful to them in the pursuit of their goal to maintain cricketing ties with South Africa. John Shepherd’s honest and well-intentioned, if perhaps rather naïve, visits to South Africa were castigated at the time by the anti-apartheid movement, some members of which branded him as a ‘traitor to the black cause’ 107 – although there was little of such criticism back home in Barbados. For Shepherd personally, he rapidly became aware of the huge disparity in way of life and opportunity between the whites on one side and the rest on the other. He was also shocked that when the South African hosts relaxed their protective grip a bit he was as vulnerable to abuse as any other black man – the incident in the Durban hotel bar was not the only one. It was also the case that some of his fellow tourists were less than sympathetic to the plight of the black South African underclass – he recalls how some of them couldn’t wait to get out of Soweto and back to the segregated comforts of their fine hotel. That any possibility of John Shepherd’s recall to the West Indies colours was scuppered by his decision to play in southern Africa is certainly true. But with the passing of time many may now feel that whilst Shep made a mistake to listen too respectfully to the advice of those such as Robins, Cowdrey and Ames who were certainly not without wider agendas, 108 he should not be harshly judged. And for his principled and altruistic decision to have nothing to do with the West Indies rebel tour of 1983 he should be roundly praised. Honorary White 83 107 Hilary Beckles, The Development of West Indies Cricket: The Age of Nationalism , Pluto Press, 1998. 108 Peter Oborne captures the ambiguity of Cowdrey well when he says that ‘… Cowdrey was dangerous to take at face value’ in Basil D’Oliveira. Cricket and Conspiracy the Untold Story , Little Brown, 2004.