R.I.P. Basil d'Oliveira

[la_marquise]

I don't follow cricket: I never have. With a cricket-mad father and brother, I got more than enough of it as a child. But all the same, I was saddened to read this morning of the death of the great Basil d'Oliveira. I remember him well as a player my father loved to watch and admired. I don't specifically remember watching him play. But as an adult, I heard the story of the difficulties he faced in making a career for himself due to the Apartheid system in his native South Africa and the racism he continued to face after he moved to Britain and became a British citizen, and of his extraordinary determination, grace under pressure, and decency. He was a good man, and a role model, and he will be missed.

Comments

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

Amen to that.

The BBC did am excellent documentary on his life a while back, which I suspect will be repeated, and is well worth watching.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes, I saw that. Really a fine programme.

[vaughan-stanger.livejournal.com]

A terrific sportsman and role model. I'll miss him.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

What I like best among today's obits? He was recently picked as one of the top ten South African cricketers of the last century, despite never having played first-class cricket in SA.

I remember him as a county player for Worcestershire; I don't think I ever saw him play for England.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's striking how much respect and liking for him is being expressed, too. He seems to have been one of those people who is loved by everyone.

[history-monk.livejournal.com]

I don't remember seeing him play - I wasn't interested in cricket until 1977 - but his example had made it clear how amoral the people who wanted to ignore apartheid were, and destroyed their arguments.

John Arlott always said the two things he was proud of were having got d'Oliveira his first job in English cricket, and having got Under Milk Wood onto the BBC.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's all very well keeping politics out of sport, but when politics invades sport and prevents sportsmen competing, then sportsmen must necessarily become political. That's why the apartheid era boycotts (as opposed, perhaps, to Geoff?) were right: because the apartheid regime started it.