There is a romance attached to the inaugural Test between two countries that retains its freshness. And if you were there, as I was, when India first played South Africa in a Test match, that is a story you can dine out on.
A decade earlier, a young cricketer from Chennai had slipped through the net, played league cricket in South Africa, and returned to tell the tale. Starved of news from the land of Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock, cricket lovers hung on to his stories which grew in scope and range with every telling.
Suresh Menon A quarter century ago when we were reporting a Test in Napier, New Zealand, two events came together that might have made millionaires of betting men given the odds of these happening virtually simultaneously. In Tokyo, the ‘unbeatable’ heavyweight Mike Tyson lost a bout. Buster Douglas reduced him to human proportions. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela was set free.
Mandela would have appreciated the juxtaposition; he was a boxer himself. Not surprisingly, it was the political event that had the greater impact on sport. Mandela’s release initiated the >return of South Africa into international cricket . India was the first country the new South Africa toured for a one-day series. Sporting isolation had affected the sport-loving country deeply, and had played a role in the dismantling of Apartheid.
What a welcome! The team received a spectacular welcome. Thousands lined the streets of Kolkata. The series was lost 1-2 but even in defeat, the South Africans returned home with indelible memories.
An emotional captain Clive Rice was quoted in Wisden as saying, “I know how Neil Armstrong felt when he stood on the moon.” Another touching moment was the meeting with Mother Teresa whose photograph later adorned a wall in Rice’s room. Rice recalled how it fell on the day of Mother Teresa’s demise.
A few months later, India toured. In Durban, thousands cheered on the streets during a motorcade. The players (and the media) were driven in open-top cars where garlands and flowers were thrown at us. I don’t expect to be part of another such motorcade again!
And for Mother Teresa, read Nelson Mandela. The less articulate Indian skipper Mohammad Azharuddin did not have a quote to match Rice’s in India, but he — and Sanjay Manjrekar — did say they felt they were in the presence of a saint.
Mandela, already 75 then, moved with lightness and grace. I wrote at the time that like Jeeves, Mandela seemed to glide into the room, and was suddenly among those present. This was in Johannesburg on 27th October 1992. I know because I have a biography signed by him.
“I recognised you from television,” Mandela told the Indian manager Amrit Mathur causing him to flush a deep red in embarrassment and confusion — and pride.
All that was to come later, in Johannesburg. The first Test was in Durban. A whole generation of South Africans had missed out on Test cricket. In the early 1970s, both India and South Africa were at the top of their game — India had beaten the West Indies and England away, while South Africa had thrashed Australia 4-0 at home before they were banned. Obviously there could be no meeting between the two to decide the unofficial world championship.
What a start! Perhaps these thoughts were running through Jimmy Cook’s mind as he prepared to face Kapil Dev and the first delivery to be bowled between the two countries. Cook was nearly 40, but had made over 2000 runs in the previous county season. He had waited 21 years since his first class debut for just this moment.
First ball, an edge, and caught by Sachin Tendulkar at slip!
It had been historic in a more important sense too. This was the first time that a non-White would watch the game from behind the bowler’s arm. Later, Mandela spoke about how he supported his favourite player, Australia’s Neil Harvey from within what could only be described as ‘cages’, square of the wicket where the non-White spectator were herded.
“Did you ever feel awkward about that?” I asked Colin Cowdrey, then the President of the International Cricket Council, who had played five Tests in South Africa in the 1950s.
“We never mixed politics with sports,” was his disappointing answer.
All that seems ages ago now. Both India and South Africa have been officially recognised as the number one team in the rankings.
As they play for the trophy named after the two people who represented the best of their respective countries (although a Mandela-Teresa Trophy might have been interesting given the meetings the inaugural teams had with these Nobel winners), it is useful to remember the politics that kept out the sport, and the sport that eased the change in politics.
