Written by: Pranjal Khatiwada - 2022013, Grade X
Posted on: 01 December, 2020
Basil Lewis D'Oliveira was an international England cricketer from South Africa. D'Oliveira was born into a religious family in Signal Hill, Cape Town. He was a fine player, a brave hard-hitting bats person, and an accurate medium pace bowler. He was famously known as “Dollie”, which was his common nickname. He was nominated as one of 10 South African cricketers of the century, despite not having played for South Africa.
He was dropped from South Africa because he was defined as ‘colored’ under the racist rules of apartheid South Africa. He was prohibited from representing South Africa, the country of his birth. So, he went to England to play. After some good performances in the domestic circuit, he was selected for the England cricket team, and then he started to give dazzling performances playing for England.
When the England team’s tour to South Africa in 1969 was announced, Basil D'Oliveira was not named, despite having scored 158 runs the previous match, in a single innings. The South African officials believed that the inclusion of Basil D'Oliveira in the team may lead to the cancellation of the tour and exclusion of South Africa from test cricket. England’s cricket authorities were put under pressure from the South African Cricket Board, who would be disappointed if Basil toured. South African prime minister of that time, B.J Vorster made it clear that D’Oliveira’s inclusion in the side to tour was not tolerable.
One injury to a staff member of the England cricket team resulted in D'Oliveira being kept into the squad to tour South Africa. The South African government reacted strongly, demanding that D'Oliveira had to be withdrawn. After all, this happened, the tour was canceled. In 1970, South Africa went into a cricketing ban for 21 years. It completely changed South African sport and society. His selection in the England team to tour South Africa and then resulted in a South African cricket ban was called The Basil D’Oliveira affair.
The D'Oliveira Affair had a significant impact on the apartheid regime in South Africa. After all of these problems that South African Cricket suffered, being banned from playing for 21 years, South Africa was welcomed to International Cricket by India in 1991, they also got the recognition of being a Test nation after apartheid, and played their first One Day International Match (ODI) in Calcutta also after apartheid. Since then, South African Cricket has produced many cricketing giants and achieved many heights in International Cricket.
