When Cricket and Politics Collided

1968 – 1970 Two Years That Changed Test Cricket

by Richard Thorn

When Cricket and Politics Collided describes one of the most extraordinary periods in the history of English cricket. A meeting on 27 August 1968 to select the players for a MCC winter tour of South Africa started a chain of events which would shake the very foundations of the cricket establishment.

Over the next two years tours were cancelled, another abandoned and finally one of the founding Test playing nations banned from international cricket for over twenty years.

Remarkably during this upheaval, and at very short notice, two replacement Test series were played. The first between between Pakistan and England, took place in a country where law and order were disintigrating and as a result the tour schedule was changing on an almost daily basis. The players were under enormous stress, their safety genuinely at risk, and even the country’s President would soon be deposed. The second, pitted England against the Rest of the World, opponents that many considered to be the strongest ever assembled for an international match. These two series produced some of the most exciting cricket of the period, and yet both are now largely forgotten.

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About the Author

Richard Thorn

Originally from Slough, Richard Thorn studied Electronic Engineering at Bolton Institute of Technology before completing a Masters Degree and PhD at Bradford University. He then moved to Bergen before emigrating to Australia where he joined the University of South Australia. Since then he has been a Professor and Head of School at the University of Derby, Victoria University, Melbourne, and most recently the University of West London.

Now retired he writes on subjects that interest him. In 2017 he published a biography of Nevil Shute Shute - The engineer who became a prince of storytellers. His latest book When Cricket and Politics Collided deals with another of his lifelong obsessions - cricket.