M.C.C. selectors showed courage

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 13

M.C.C. selectors showed courage

r THE M.C.C.’s forthcoming tour of South Africa should help to clarify the puzzling picture of international cricket at the top level today. South Africa could well claim to be the top cricketing nation at present, but England’s experienced batting and enthusiastic bowling should offer the Springboks a stern challenge; the test series is likely to be closely-fought and highly interesting. And if England should win, it will return with the knowledge that the West Indies, still very nearly the best team, will be touring in 1969. England’s visit to South Africa began unhappily with the omission of B. L. D'Oliveira from the M.C.C. side. Critics of apartheid have won, very properly, wide support and sympathy. But the clamour at the failure of England’s selectors to choose D’Oliveira has been almost hysterical, and suggests that there are some who feel D’Oliveira had to be chosen because he is coloured. England’s group of top batsmen is ageing. By the end of the year—and the start of the test series in South Africa—M. C. Cowdrey will be 36, T. W. Graveney 41, K. F. Barrington 38. These are the players against whom D’Oliveira’s claims were matched. D’Oliveira himself will be 34. There can be no argument about the selection of G. Boycott, J. H. Edrich and R. M. Prideaux, for these three are specialist opening batsmen. Notwithstanding D’Oliveira’s fine score in the final test against Australia, it will be generally accepted that Cowdrey, Graveney and Barrington have better claims to places in a vital test series. The only other batsman chosen is K. Fletcher. He is 24. Can the England selectors be blamed, when their principal batsmen are cricketing veterans, for selecting one young player who may be able to lead the way when the others retire, as they soon must do? C. Mil-

bum, only 27, and an exciting batsman more likely than D’Oliveira to play a match-winning innings, has also been left out of the side. Comparatively little has been said about his omission; all the attention has been given D’Oliveira, whose claims were also reduced by his expensive fielding lapses in the West Indies. There can be no doubt that D’Oliveira was unfortunate not to win a place

in the team, but the situation has been dramatised so much it is far out of proportion. In making what they knew would be an unpopular decision and in bringing on themselves rebukes which they could have easily passed on to South Africa, the England selectors showed considerable courage. If England’s batting is long in the tooth, only T. W. Cartwright, of the bowlers, is in the veteran class, and at this distance it seems unlikely that he will be a test player. England has a useful pace attack, a clever and accurate left-arm spinner, D. L. Underwood, and an off-spinner, P. I. Pocock, who could yet fulfil the high hopes held of him.