Race And Sport

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 14

Race And Sport

The omission of Basil D’Oliveira from the M.C.C. side to tour South Africa has aroused the indignation of many who assume, too readily, that the team was not chosen on the merits of the players available. Sports selections are a matter of personal judgment; and criticisms of selections can be based only on opinion. Racial issues arouse strong feelings, even prejudices; and a sports selection with racial connotations was bound to be controversial. Some who criticise the selection do so in the belief that the M.C.C. has discriminated against D’Oliveira on the ground of his colour; but some eminent cricket writers are satisfied that the best team was chosen—regardless of colour. Possibly some of the more vociferous critics of the selection lack a knowledge of cricket to match the strength of their—creditable —feelings about discrimination. Proceeding from the unproven assumption that D’Oliveira was dropped from the M.C.C. team because of his colour, the Citizens’ Association for Racial Equality in New Zealand argues that D’Oliveira’s exclusion has “ ominous significance for New Zealand “ sports administrators in their unwholesome wooing “of South African apartheid sports groups”. The association’s particular target is, of course, the New Zealand Rugby Union—the body which called off the 1967 tour of South Africa because Maoris could not then be included in the team. The union was admittedly slow to change its policy; but its policy has been changed and is unequivocal. Zealots for racial equality do their cause no good by accusing sports administrators of bad faith. The New Zealand public will not tolerate discrimination, as the “No “ Maoris, no tour ” campaign of 1966 showed; but the discrimination must be proven, not imagined.