N.Z. will support return of S.A. cricket

Press, 24 July 1980, Page 36

N.Z. will support return of S.A. cricket

New Zealand will support any move by other countries to readmit South Africa to the International Cricket Conference when the conference meets in London in mid-August, and the New Zealand Cricket Council’s policy will have strong support from its representatives, Messrs R. A. Vance (chairman) and W. A. Hadlee. Mr Hadlee was a member of an I.C.C. mission to South Africa last year to investigate the progress of racial integration in cricket there. South Africa was one of three founder members of the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1907, withdrew in 1960, but played test cricket until 1970.

“I am totally against racial discrimination in general,” said Mr Hadlee yesterday. “I was one of many who publicly opposed the non-inclusion of Maoris in the 1960 All ’ Blacks team. I was distressed at the decision, within South Africa, which prevented a nativeborn South African, Basil

D’Oliveira, from playing for the country of his birth.

“When I became chairman of the New Zealand Board of Control, I took the view that there was little we could do for South African cricket until it did something for itself. “The criterion required was non-racial cricket, with selection on merit from club level upwards. This was entirely in accord with the submissions made by the antiapartheid bodies.” In 1976, Mr Hadlee said, the three cricket bodies representing different ethnic groups in South Africa set up a nine-man motivating . committee, comprising three representatives from each body. As a result, the South African Cricket Union was constituted on September 18, 1977. The three former bodies were in effect voluntarily liquidated. “The S.A.C.U. had Rashid. Varachia as president, Boon Wallace as vicepresident,” said Mr Hadlee. ‘‘Varachia outlined S.A.C.U. policy, thus: (1)

Membership of clubs should be open, and not governed by race, creed or colour; (2) There must be merit selection; (3) To truly implement merit selection, mixed cricket should be played from club level upwards; (4) There should be sharing of common facilities. He also said his board would discuss, as soon as possible, the question of returning South Africa to the test scene.

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“This was what all the cricket groups had been striving for,” Mr Hadlee said. “Yet the cricket section of the report of the South African Council on Sport, after recording these developments, had this to say: ‘Varachia thinks this is bloody easy.

Our acting president intimated that a meeting of all non-racial cricketers has been called for September 25 at Kimberley to launch a new body’.” “So a week later a- new

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body, the South African Cricket Board, was formed to oppose integration. This was a direct attempt to negate the efforts which the whole of South African cricket had agreed upon — to bring about non-racial cricket, merit selection, and the reinstatement of South Africa to international status. “The constitution of the S.A.C.U. included this: 'A mutual respect of the members in their dealings with each other, an inadmissibility of discrimination against member units or their individual members on racial, political, religious or other grounds and a full, effective and equal participation in or enjoyment of the game of cricket, or the

facilities therefor at the venues by any player, official, or spectator, in any game controlled . and promoted by the union.” The South African Cricket Board also has a policy, Mr Hadlee said,

and for all practical purposes the two seemed to be as one. Yet the S.A.C.B. was determined to oppose the elevation of South Africa to the international scene. “One can only conclude that this is for political reasons,” said Mr Hadlee. “Indeed, Mr Hassan Howa, president of both the S.A.C.O.S. and the S.A.C.B. told me that the S.A.CB. existed not so much for cricket but for political ends. “As an instance of its determination to destroy the work of the S.A.C.U. it has, through the Natal Cricket Board, taken such steps as the banning of a group of schoolboys whose only sin was to re« ceive coaching from a group of cricketers belonging to the formerly all-white Natal Cricket Association.

“Today international sport is at the crossroads,” said Mr Hadlee. “We have a situation where political ends are served by intrusion into what used to be the right of sports persons to com-

pete freely with one another. “There is probably no clear-cut solution because of the widely divergent views of various governments and their peoples, but it seems a pity that sportsmen can not determine with whom and against ( whom they wish to play. That was always a democratic right. “One recognises the problems confronting governments, but I am sure that the sporting fraternities of the world would much prefer that they be unimpeded in their ambitions and desires to compete under the Olympics principle. “I am sure that such competition, encouraged by governments, would do no harm and may do a lot of good in bringing back mutual understanding,” he said. “To achieve free competition will require much goodwiU and understanding by many people and organisations who may be persuaded that through Integrated sport the world could become a better place for all.”