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Breaking of
Cricketing Barriers |
THE current five-Test series between South Africa and the West Indies will be ultimate test of character for both the players and administrators of both teams, a time when the apartheid policies have died but the legacy
remains.
Hopefully, this series will go a long way in bridging the gap between the two teams, who have only met each other five times in Test cricket following their inaugural clash on April 1992 at the Kensington Oval, Bridgetown,
Barbados.
The West Indies Cricket Board of Control, now the WICB, were the first to agree to compete against the South Africans after their return to the international fold after their 20-year ICC-imposed apartheid ban. The decision was hastily done at the time but it went a long way in inciting the imagination of the black South Africans, especially the residents of the
townships.
It is no secret that the West Indians took the anti-apartheidstruggle to heart, notoriously in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. There were incidents, from 1976 to 1986 where players with South African contacts were denied entry into those countries while eighteen West Indian cricketers were prohibited from all cricket under the auspices of the WICB
after signing up for two 'rebel' tours of South Africa under the captaincy of Lawrence Rowe.
Times have changed since the West Indies ruled the roost in the 1970s and 1980s, but the West Indians are still revered by the South Africans, due to the flair and cavalier spirit of their play. And, there have been a number of Caribbean personnel who have been involved in raising the standard of the South African game, for example the late Malcolm Marshall and Sir Conrad Hunte, Brian Lara, Vasbert Drakes, Desmond Haynes and Ken Benjamin.
But the difference in cricketing infrastructure, and by extension, cricketing structure between the two are vast but this series is guaranteed to be keenly intriguing, from the first ball to the last. The teams did not face each other in the pre-apartheid era, with the South Africans paying the price for their ethnic policies with the ICC sanction in
1970.
The 'rebel' teams, who individually admitted that they were martyrs for the cause for the black South Africans but were merely seeking monetary gains, included Rowe, Colin Croft, Alvin Kallicharan, Bernard Julien, Sylvester Clarke, Everton Mattis, Faoud Bacchus, Deryck Parry, David Murray and Collis King, all former Test players, while Ezra Moseley played two Tests after the WICB lifted their ban in 1989.
Due to his firm patriotic stance, Sir Viv Richards refused numerous approaches and offers to play in South Africa, but after their playing careers were over, Marshall and Haynes, who were members of the great West Indies team of yester-year, represented state sides, Marshall played for Natal while Haynes plied his trade for Natal. And Dale Benkenstein, who skippered the South African 'A' team during their tour of the West Indies a year ago, played for Wanderers in the 1994 Barbados domestic league.
Months after their reinstatement, the South Africans, led by former Australian testite Kepler Wessels, won the toss and inserted the Richie Richardson-led West Indies on April 18 1992. But, for the duration of the match, the stands were virtually empty as the Barbadians staged a boycott, ostensibly due to the omission of pacer Anderson Cummins from the original 13.
Leading the West Indies for the first time in a Test match, Richardson's unit failed to make full use of an easy-paced wicket and were dismissed for 262 on the first day. Opener Andrew Hudson, with 163 in eight-and-a-half hours, and Wessels' 59 shared a second wicket partnership of 136 to guide South Africa to a first innings score of 345. Apart from Lara's 64, the West Indies were tottering at 196/8, a lead of 113 on the fourth day when debutant Adams, with an unbeaten knock of 79, lifted the total to 283, setting the visitors 201 to complete the win with five sessions remaining. Wessels' 74 and Peter Kirsten's 52 aside, the West Indies maintained their record of not having lost a Test at Kensington since 1935 with a sensational victory. Entering the final day requiring 79 more runs with eight wickets in hand, they were ripped apart by Curtly Ambrose (6/34 from 24.4) and Walsh (4/31 from 22) for a score of 148 twelve minutes before lunch.
The 1998-99 tour to South Africa was delayed by a week due to a standoff at London's Heathrow Airport between the West Indies Players' Association and the West Indies Cricket Board over pay and conditions. After the dust was
settled, including pleas by President Nelson Mandela and several Caribbean leaders and diplomatic consultations, the players suffered the fate of a 5-0 whitewash.
The first Test match at Johannesburg ushered the start of the Test career of Ridley Jacobs, but it was Walsh who stole the early limelight as he surpassed then-coach Malcolm Marshall to become the top wicket-taker for a West Indian Test bowler. Shaun Pollock, with nine scalps in the match, paved the way for a South African win, by four wickets on the stroke of tea on the final day. That was the closest margin of victory for the series.
The following clash, at Port Elizabeth, ended a half-hour before tea on the third day with the West Indies capitulating for 121 and 141, in a combined 75.5 overs, to lose by 178 runs.
Five team changes and rearranged batting and bowling line-ups made little difference as the team was beaten by nine wickets in the third Test in Durban. Ambrose passed the milestone of 350 Test wickets during the fourth Test at Cape Town, but, despite encouraging fortunes with the lower order, the West Indies were trounced by 149 runs. And the Windies were put out of their misery with a 351-run annihation at Centurion.