by Arunabha Sengupta
50 Tests. First man to play that many for South Africa.
How many would he have played in a normal society?
But John Waite did not see anything abnormal.
In fact, his book Perchance to Bowl, written in 1960 after the England tour and published in 1961, contained a whole chapter titled Why White Cricketers Do Not Play Non-White Cricketers in South Africa
It was a chapter full of peculiar ideas, that somehow ruled in the bubbles of whiteness in South Africa and their friendly cronies around the world.
Writing about David Sheppard, cricketer and reverend, opposing the South African tour, Waite observed: “We did wonder whether he had forgotten the attitude Jesus Christ adopted in regard to Mary Magdalene on the occasion of their original meeting.”
Waite went on to say that he considered MCC Assistant Secretary Billy Griffith’s gesture of sharing the bus trip with the South African cricketers as more Christian than Sheppard. “It sprang from a far more enlightened mind, from a mind and heart that had shared in the agony of Arnhem, from a mind and heart that is completely devoted to ‘playing cricket’ in every sense of the term.”
He continued: “From a purely personal viewpoint no South African sportsman has any objection to competing with, or against, a Coloured man inside South Africa […] The real reason why White and Black or Coloured South Africans do not normally play with or against each other is not a personal reason, it is a political reason. It is the Black and Coloured people who have been most prone to mix politics with sports.”
Waite was indignant: “The Black and Coloured public of South Africa is not equipped or ready for multi-racial sport any more than the Black and Coloured public of the Union is ready to govern South Africa or to manage its industries.”
His justifications were aplenty: “If a White boxer were to batter a Negro boxer in a bloody battle at Johannesburg’s Rand Stadium before a multi-racial crowd there could be savage repercussions which might result in severe loss of both Black and White lives. If a Black boxer were to batter a White boxer before such an attendance, I for one would not wish to have my wife along. It is the Black and Coloured people of South Africa who must prove that they can take a victory and a licking before inter-racial and multi-racial sport can be safely conducted in South Africa.”
After a lengthy discourse, he concluded: “No, I do not believe that the time is quite ripe yet for inter- or multi-racial sport on a big scale in South Africa. Many of us Whites only wish that it were.”
And of course, he went on to add, quite famously, that there was no non-White sportsman in South Africa who could replace any White sportsman in any sporting side.
Rich indeed, given Lobo Abed was generally accepted to be a far better wicketkeeper batsman than Waite himself.
Given during that very 1960 tour Basil D’Oliveira could be seen turning out for Middleton.
It is also pertinent that Waite did not write the full book himself. It was ghost-written—officially termed ‘edited’—by Dick Whitington, the biographer of Keith Miller, Lindsay Hassett, and a prolific writer of cricket books.
While Whitington is notorious for his cavalier approach towards facts, this collaboration also symbolises the attitude of condoning camaraderie that existed between a large part of the White cricketing nations.
John Waite was a decent cricketer. 2405 runs at 30.44 and 141 dismissals in those 50 Tests. Often he opened the batting. Once against New Zealand he played a Test purely as a batsman and scored 28 and 41 as Denis Lindsay wore the bigger gloves.
But he would have played very few Tests if selection was not white-blind.
John Waite was born on 19 Jan 1930.