Tomorrow’s decision‘likely to decide future of world cricket’

Press, 2 March 1981, Page 30

Tomorrow’s decision‘likely to decide future of world cricket’

NZPA-Reuter Bridgetown The future of England’s cricket tour of the West Indies, jeopardised by a row over a player’s links ■with South Africa, now lies with the foreign ministers of Barbados, Jamaica and Antigua. The team left Guyana prematurely on Friday after the Government there served a deportation order on the fast bowler, Robin Jackman, for play-, ing and coaching in South Africa. The second test match against the West Indies, due to take place in Georgetown, Guyana, was cancelled. Now Government leaders of the three remaining countries on their itinerary are to meet to decide if

the tour is to continue. A decision is expected tomorrow. The Caribbean governments, facing a severe test of their diplomatic. skills over the row, have had wide-ranging consultations with the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Sir Shridath Ramphal, the British Government and representatives of African and other Commonwealth States. ■ ■ ' ■ The controversy has developed too rapidly for decisions to be easily reached. : English Cricket Council officials have demanded an assurance from the West Indies Cricket Board of Control that there would be ’absolutely no attempt by any government to interfere with the

selection of the England team or to impose any restrictions on their entry to any country included on the itinerary for the remainder of the tour.” The president of the board, Mr Stollmeyer, replied that it would not contravene principles governing sporting links with South Africa which the Caribbean . governments have subscribed to. So the foreign ministers have to find a consensus that takes into consideration their people’s passionate love of cricket and the principles underlying their opposition to South Africa’s apartheid policies. Cricket feeling runs as high in Barbados as anywhere else in the Caribbean. In a radio talk-back

show about the controversy, British cricket administrators were strongly criticised but most callers wanted to see cricket played. However, the main message of the programme was that Caribbean policy lines on the issue had obviously not been sharp enough. That goes to the heart of the controversy because several other members of the England team have played cricket in South Africa. Guyana said Jackman’s presence in Georgetown infringed a 1977 Commonwealth agreement on sporting links with South Africa. Analysts who have checked the agreement word by word assert its

language is not always precise and that where it is, Caribbean countries, including Guyana, have not honoured it absolutely. To have done so would have been to take bread out of the mouths of West Indian cricket stars, a leading sportscaster, Sam Wilkinson said. He was referring to the substantia! earnings West Indians pocket from English county cricket where they, regularly play alongside South African players. The current tour could be the last made there by “an English, or, conceivably, an Australian or New Zealand team,” the English cricket writer, John Arlott, wrote in an article in the “Guardian” newspaper.

Arlott, formerly a 8.8. C. cricket commentator of many years standing, was commenting on the possible ramifications to the sport. Arlott writes that the incident might lead to “the human disaster of world cricket divided on a colour basis. “That was threatened, distantly, over the D’Oliveira affair. The future of world bilities are even more ominously and instantly grave —• a deep racial split looks ready-made for completion,” he said. Arlott said that cricket is poised on probably the “most perilous brink” in the history of the sport. The entire framework of world cricket is threatened, he wrote.

“The administrators of all the cricketing countries must join with the will to save the game from the destruction which now is imminent. “If that is to succeed, prejudices must be disregarded on both sides and the game must, at last, and on both sides, be seen as greater than colour,” Arlott wrote. The futre of world cricket would be in turmoil if England eventually had to call off their current tour, Pat Gibson wtote in the “Daily Express.” Gibson said that the tragic irony of the affair was that Guyana had given English cricket an offensive shove towards the welcoming arms of South Africa.

Gibson wrote that there had been a strong lobby in the International Cricket Conference (LC.C.) for some time to restore links with South Africa with a view to their return to test cricket Guyana’s action must have increased that possibility and raised the awful spectre of a select cricket circuit involving only England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa,” he said. < - In another report in the “Daily Express,” the newspaper’s David Miller, writing from the West Indies wrote: “It l is probable that all future test cricket in the Caribbean against England and Australia may have perished.” The politicians; Miller said, were’ ■ building a

world fit not for heroes, but for hypocrites. It is the mentality which will ultimately engulf and cripple all sport and force the polarisation of black and white. It wrecked the Olympics of 1976 and 1980, it threatens the Commonwealth Games in Brisbane next year, and eventually the politicans of the Third World may well oblige Europe to break away in the World Cup,” Miller said. In the "Daily; Mail,” Peter Smith wrote from the West Indies that the threat now was that England may never visit Guyana again and the action of the Guyanese Government in deporting Jackman may even result in the break-up of the West

Indies Cricket Board of Control. “That would be a catastrophe, lessening the chances of the black and white cricketers playing together, in a game which has welajmed ’allcomers, whatever their creed, colour or religion,” Smith said. Pakistan may offer to play three tests in the West Indies if the England tour is called off, Air Marshal Nur Khan, the president of the Pakistan Cricket Board, said at the week-end. He said In the event of the England team returning home the Pakistan Board would contact West Indian cricket authorities to explore the possibility of a test series.