Empire Cricket Booklet

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BOER PRISONERS OF WAR IN CEYLON

of cricket in the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Philadelphia (USA), and was particularly offensive to Afrikaners. They were scarcely likely, so soon after their bitter defeat in the South African War, to take up a game that had explicitly chosen to identify itself with British imperialism. 1 0 0 Afrikaners only started playing cricket in substantial numbers after South Africa's departure from the British Commonwealth, and with it the ICC, in 1961, hence freeing the game in South Africa from its imperial connotations. 1 0 1 Grundlingh suggests that rugby had a resonance because it appealed to the 'evolving self-image of nationalist Afrikaners'. The 'qualities of rugby fitted in well with the physical, psychological and

in 1906/0Z Over half the team (18 out of 29) comprised Afrikaners. No South African cricket team (before or after 1906) had such strong Afrikaner representation. The captain was Paul Roos, an Afrikaner product of the University of Stellenbosch, who later served as a National Party member of parliament. Roos was the first-ever Afrikaans-speaking captain of a South African sporting team. The team's stars were mostly Afrikaners: Roos, Japie Krige, 'Boy' de Villiers, Anton Stegmann, Bob Loubser (all of whom came from the University of Stellenbosch); Dougie and Sommie Morkel (Transvaal); and Bingo Burger (Border). The foundation laid by Roos's team, and the successes which Springbok rugby enjoyed in the years which

Two of the many Boer cricket teams who played against each other in the Diyatalawa camp. Three of the Boer Cricket Club's stalwarts who played in the match against the Colts appear in the middle row: third from the left is George Sennett; fourth from the left is Thomas Hilder and fifth from the left is Alexus Smuts.

followed, probably contributed to Afrikaners em bracing rugby. The Springbok cricket team that toured England in 1907 included only one Afrikaner, fast bowler J. J. 'Boerjong' Kotze. It would take many decades, and 'political power, increasing wealth and greater social opportunities and confidence [to] broaden the base of Afrikaans-speaking cricketers in South Africa'. Traditional Afrikaner names like Wessels, Cronje, Nel, Steyn and Markel have featured prominently in post-apartheid South African cricket.

ideological needs of nationalist Afrikaners at a specific historical juncture'. 10 2 In regarding rugby as an 'opportunity to demonstrate presumed Afrikaner qualities such as ruggedness, endurance, forcefulness and determination', Springbok rugby, in Afrikaner ranks and at least in the era after the South African War, 'carried a thinly disguised anti-imperialistic message'.1 03 An unexplored explanation for Afrikaners embracing rugby may be found in the success of the first-ever Springbok rugby team to tour Great Britain