In this week’s edition of In Search of West Indies Cricket, Roger Seymour takes an initial look at the controversial subject of apartheid and cricket.
On the January 15, 1981, the eighth English Test tour party to the West Indies and the first not under the auspices of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), departed London for St John’s, Antigua. Ian Botham, the 24-year-old Captain and dashing all-rounder from Somerset, would be on his first assignment abroad, exactly four months to the day since the announcement of the team. Under the chairmanship of Alec Bedser, the selection panel of Ken Barrington, Brian Close, Charlie Elliot, Peter May, Alan Smith, Charles Palmer (Chairman of the Test Cricket and County Board -TCCB) and Botham, had had the unenviable task of assembling a side to stymie the West Indian juggernaut, unbeaten at home since 1973.