{"product_id":"9780751534887","title":"Basil D'oliveira : Cricket and Controversy by Peter Oborne","description":"There have been innumerable biographies of cricketers. Peter Oborne's outstanding biography of Basil D'Oliveira is something else. It brings together sport, politics and race.  It is the story of how a black South African defied incredible odds and came to play cricket for England, of how a single man escaped from apartheid and came to fulfil his prodigious sporting potential.  It is a story of the conquest of racial prejudice, both in South Africa and in the heart of the English sporting establishment.  The story comes to its climax in the so-called D'Oliveira Affair of 1968, when John Vorster, the South African Prime Minister, banned the touring MCC side because of the inclusion of a black man. This episode marked the start of the twenty-year sporting isolation of South Africa that ended only with the collapse of apartheid itself.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Paperback \/ softback","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56297075671413,"sku":"9780751534887","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780751534887.jpg?v=1762778758","url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/products\/9780751534887","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}