Cricket and Society in South Africa, 1910–1971

Bruce Murray is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Previous publications include The People’s Budget: Lloyd George and Liberal Politics, 1909-10 (1980), Wits: The Early Years (1982) and Wits: The ‘Open’ Years (1997).  He is co-author of Caught Behind: Race and Politics in Springbok Cricket (2004), and co-editor of Empire and Cricket: The South African Experience 1884-1914 (2009).  Richard Parry has a Ph.D. from Queen’s University, Canada, and written variously on resistance to colonialism, South African cricket and social history, and international taaxation. He was a contributor to Empire and Cricket: The South African Experience 1884-1914 (2009). Jonty Winch received his Ph.D. from the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and has written six books including England’s Youngest Captain: The Life and Times of MontyBowden (2003).  He also contributed to Empire and Cricket: The South African Experience 1884-1914 and co-authored Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold (2016).

“What is revealed in this highly stimulating grand sweep of history from Rhodes to Richards is far more than a chronology of events, rather a hidden history of a fractured society and a tribute to forgotten players and administrators and their impact on an evolving sport that possessed an extraordinary richness and diversity of talent.” (Russell Holden, idrottsforum.org, June 4, 2020)

• Foreword; Andre Odendaal.- PART I: THE LANDSCAPE.- 1. Introduction: Landscape, Players and Politics; Richard Parry, Jon Gemmell and Jonty Winch.- 2. Eclipse of the Summerbok: Percy Sherwell, Paul Roos and the Competition for a National Game for South Africa; Geoffrey Levett.- 3. ‘Not the same thing as on grass’: Cultural Pessimism and the Development of South African Cricket, Matting Wickets and the Migration to Turf, 1876-1935; Dale Slater.- PART II: THE PLAYERS.- 4. African Cricket on the Rand: Piet Gwele, Frank Roro and the Shaping of a Community; Richard Parry.- 5. Rhodes, Cricket and the Scholarship Legacy: A Southern African Perspective, 1903-1971; Jonty Winch.- 6. India in the Imagination of Indian South African Cricket, 1910-1971; Goolam Vahed.- 7. Diffusion and Depiction: How Afrikaners came to Play Cricket in Twentieth-Century South Africa; Albert Grundlingh.- 8. The Education of Bruce Mitchell and the ‘Union Babies’:  History, Accumulation and the Path to Triumph at Lord’s, 1924-1935 Richard Parry and Dale Slater.- 9. ‘Rejects of the Sporting Whites of the Continent’: African Cricket in Rhodesia; Jonty Winch.- PART III: THE POLITICS.- 10. Should the West Indies have Toured South Africa in 1959? C.L.R. James versus Learie Constantine; Jonty Winch.- 11. The D’Oliveira Affair: The End of an Era; Bruce Murray.- 12. ‘Who are we ... to tell the South Africans how to run their country?’ The Women’s Cricket Association and the Aftermath of the D’Oliveira Affair, 1968-9; Rafaelle Nicholson.- 13. The Newlands 'Walk-off'’; Patrick Ferriday.- Index.