That it is in the top half dozen cricket books of the thousands that I have read.
It really is that good. Not because it has two former Derbyshire players (Peter Kirsten and Lawrence Rowe) on the front cover, but because I have complete admiration for anyone who has put in the hard yards to get a book to publication. I compared it to my own experiences in writing In Their Own Words: Derbyshire Cricketers in Conversation. The hardest issue I found was in pinning down a suitable date for some interviews, the subjects almost without exception delighted to talk about their careers, the high and low points.
Australian writer Ashley Gray appears to have not enjoyed such luxury. He travelled to the Caribbean and to the United States in the hope of interviewing the West Indian players who went on the so-called rebel tours of South Africa in 1983/84. Some were happy to chat, others reluctant, a few decided against it after initially saying yes. There were requests for large amounts of money, and a hostility from some that is eye-opening.
The tours were well-intended, with the idea of showing that black players could compete as equals on the same pitch as their white counterparts. With South Africa excluded from the international fold because of apartheid, it was an opportunity for the best team in the world, the West Indies, to tour and perhaps open the door for a return.
Except it didn't work out that way. Although the squad that toured was a strong one, the very best players from the Caribbean didn't tour, even if several had first indicated that they would. It caused a rift of seismic proportions in West Indian cricket, with friendships lost forever at the same time as playing contracts. Most of those who toured never played in the West Indies again and certainly not for them. They became outcasts and a tour that was meant to be life-changing proved to be just that, but very much to the detriment of most members of the party.
Some did well. Lawrence Rowe, the tour captain left his native Jamaica and set up a successful vacuum seal business in Miami for three decades. The amount of money received for the tours was life-changing, but some were some were not prepared for it, spending it on fast cars, drugs and drink. For every Rowe and Albert Padmore there is a David Murray, once a highly-rated wicket-keeper, even if he spent much of his time on the pitch high on marijuana. He now spends his time selling drugs to tourists in Bridgetown, the physical deterioration sad to see. Then there is Herbert Chang, a talented batsman and Richard Austin, an all-rounder of genuine ability, both suffering from addictions and mental deterioration. The latter died in 2015, his slide from international all-rounder to shoeless street beggar a tragedy.
Or there is the supremely talented Bernard Julien, once regarded as the 'new Sobers' but distracted by his penchant for women and alcohol in equal measure and now battling depression and throat cancer. The author never did get his interview with him, despite travelling across the globe in order to do so. Nor with Colin Croft, whose curt 'I want nothing to do with you or your project' does little to change your mind on a gruff persona.
The overriding feeling is that the players were well-meaning but very naive. The volatility of their domestic setup was always going to leave them as persona non grata back home, despite their protestations to the contrary. It likely helped to some extent in South Africa, but their eventual reintegration into the international fold was to require a political swing that seemed unlikely at the time. For their many detractors, the tourists sold their reputations and dignity to extend the life of a disgraced government.
The cricket was competitive, as it was always going to be when two international juggernauts collided, but the financial reward for the tourists was tempered by reactions back home and even in the country, where a number of them encountered racism on their travels. They were looked after, treated as 'honorary whites' and entertained, they fathered a good few babies and enjoyed hospitality wherever they went. Yet the conclusion I drew is that few of them would make the same decision again, even if most were at best peripheral figures at international level, at the time of the tour.
A comparison with their English counterparts, who toured in 1982 and 1989, is valid. After a three-year Test ban most of the English tourists continued their careers in cricket, several reaching high office within the game's establishment or successful careers in the media or coaching. Those from the Caribbean, with the exception of Sylvester Clarke and Franklyn Stephenson, who had long county careers, effectively ended their cricketing lives with the tours.
The book is entertaining, harrowing and informative, beautifully written and researched by the author, whose first book is nothing other than a triumph.
Buy it or get it on your birthday or Christmas list. If you read better this year you will be very lucky.
The Unforgiven: Mercenaries or Missionaries is written by Ashley Gray and published by Pitch Publishing. It is available from all good book shops.
There was a story that Colin Croft when travelling on a train in South Africa he was asked to move from the first class area of the train as this was for whites only unlike Gandhi he obliged and was later quoted as saying “it was no problem”
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