by Arunabha Sengupta
January 1964.
Peter Pollock tore a hamstring at Melbourne. The third Test at Sydney was to start just four days later. The spearhead was supposed to sit out. But somehow he recovered. Or is it that he hid the pain? In any case he ran in to capture 5 for 83, enjoying the pace, bounce and the grass.
But by the time Australia batted again, the pitch was dead. Pollock’s bouncers lacked pace and viciousness. O’Neill called them creampuffs. The match ended in a draw.
At Adelaide, Australia batted first. Peter Pollock breathed fire. Lawry was caught for 14. Six balls later, O’Neill fended a bouncer into Goddard’s hands at gully. “How’s that for a cream puff?” asked Pollock as the batsman walked back.
Peter Pollock was fast, he was brilliant. And he could be intimidating.
When England were intent to draw the final Test at Port Elizabeth in 1964-65, and Geoff Boycott produced a seven-hour somniferous yawn amounting to 117, Pollock bowled two deliberate beamers at him. He did not even pretend that the balls had slipped. He did not even attempt to apologise.
He was human too.
There was that famous triumph at Trent Bridge. Peter Pollock five wickets in each innings, Graeme Pollock a sublime hundred, and a series winning victory for South Africa on the birthday of Ma Pollock.
However, the match was not free from troubles for the elder Pollock sibling. While his brother was stroking that superb hundred, wickets were tumbling at the other end. Unable to take the tension, he locked himself in the backroom. With Graeme proceeding to take the English bowling by the collar, Peter was asked to stay there, allowed back only towards the end of his brother’s innings.
And in the final innings when Parfitt and Parks batted on stubbornly, Peter promised God not to touch the celebratory drink if He helped South Africa pull of the win. When later the rest of his team toasted the victory, he remained in the bathroom, alone and aloof.
A policeman assigned to the team came in for a pee and found him there. “Peter, why are you so glum? You guys have won a Test. Celebrate.” Like a conjuring trick, this upholder of the law fished out a beer. Interpreting it as a sign from the Almighty Himself, Pollock drained the can.
During a festival match at Scarborough, a strong Rest of the World side took on England XI. It was 1966, bang in the middle of the apartheid controversies. Basil D’Oliveira was playing for England and the Pollock brothers for RoW.
D’Oliveira caught Graeme off his own bowling for 22, catching him off his own bowling. When he batted, Peter ran in and sent down a beamer. Did it slip out of his hand? Pollock just stared at D’Oliveira with a grim look on his face and walked back to his bowling mark. No apology was rendered. D’Oliveira hit the next ball over his head for six.
D'Oliveira’s biographer Peter Oborne writes: “Pollock was a young White South African, brought up as the apartheid system reached its full savagery. White cricket in South Africa was founded on the assertion that Blacks could not play the game. D’Oliveira’s mere existence of as international cricketer was a denial of everything that Pollock stood for. Pollock’s beamer could appear to be an expression of pent-up rage at the Black man for his impudent defiance.”
Well reasoned, but perhaps falling under the category of speculation. Pollock was prone to bounce tail-enders and sending down beamers without apologising. An aggressive fast bowler, he could let his temper get the better of himself.
But the Pollocks were born into a liberal household. Peter’s father, AM ‘Mac’ Pollock, was an editor of Eastern Province Herald and quite steadfastly against apartheid. He was also prone to saying, “These Nats will destroy the country.”
Peter Pollock even volunteered his efforts for the anti-Nationalist movement, as a driver in Despatch. He also protested in his own way by refusing to speak Afrikaans. I would put the beamer down to competitiveness and not a to racial bias.
Later Peter and Bas became friends. Peter Pollock was also the brain behind the unique and brave protest against apartheid by the South African players during the festival match at Newlands in 1971, when both the teams walked out after one ball. Being a journalist as well, he crafted the message for the teams along with Charles Fortune.
Pollock ended with 116 wickets in 28 Tests at 21.67 apiece. He could bat too, well enough to average more than 20 in Tests. The terrifying duo of Pollock and Mike Procter bowled together in just 6 Tests, and they captured 64 wickets at 17.36.
It could have been a lot more. Pollock could have ended with 300-plus wickets, his partnership with Procter could have been as successful as Steyn-Philander or Donald-Pollock or Garner-Marshall or Lindwall-Miller or Wasim-Waqar. If only South Africa had been a normal society.
But, unlike one or two of his mates who still remain bitter old men, Peter Pollock made his peace with the isolation. He found solace in God. He became an international evangelist. His autobiography God’s Fast Bowler is a very decent read combining dramatic cricketing memories with poignant thoughts about life.
Peter Pollock was born on 30 June 1941