There have been innumerable biographies of cricketers. Peter Oborne's outstanding biography of Basil D'Oliveira is something else. It brings together sport, politics and race. It is the story of how a black South African defied incredible odds and came to play cricket for England, of how a single man escaped from apartheid and came to fulfil his prodigious sporting potential. It is a story of the conquest of racial prejudice, both in South Africa and in the heart of the English sporting establishment. The story comes to its climax in the so-called D'Oliveira Affair of 1968, when John Vorster, the South African Prime Minister, banned the touring MCC side because of the inclusion of a black man.
- ISBN10 0316725722
- ISBN13 9780316725729
- Publish Date 17 June 2004
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 29 March 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Little, Brown & Company
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 288
- Language English