Empire Cricket Booklet

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GEOFFREY LEVETT

As for the British: 'We understand one another better; and if this becomes one of the tangible results of this tour, we should be very satisfied.' 26 While one of the themes of the tour by the rugby team was reconciliation between the white races, the cricket team was relentlessly portrayed as being British and imperialist in character. Though rugby's heartland remained in the Cape Colony in the early 1900s, the driving force behind South African cricket was very much centred on the Rand and the mining industry. The leaders of the mining industry, the Randlords, worked with the British colonial government to strengthen the cultural and financial ties between South Africa and Britain, and cricket was a part of that process. The leading English cricket magazine

English, while the only international defeat came against Scotland in the face of notably 'Scottish weather'.'22 But the rugby tour was also a tour aimed at overt reconciliation between Afrikaner and British inhabitants of South Africa. The party of 29 tourists was made up of thirteen men of Afrikaans origin and sixteen of British; the captaincy was taken by Paul Roos, the son a Cape Colony farmer, while the vice captaincy was held by Harold J. 'Paddy' Carolin. 23 One player, A. 0. Morkel, had been held captive by the British on St. Helena, while Billy Millar had been severely wounded in the shoulder while fighting for the British. 24 That the tour had been a success in projecting a unified and peaceful image of the white races in South Africa was commented on both in England in South Africa. In England, the Morning Post

observed: 'The South Africans have demonstrated that the colonies are capable of rejuvenating the methods of the Motherland, and have shown that the race from which they spring is equal to ours in courage, chivalry and sportsmanship.' 25 In a speech in Cape Town on the team's return to South Africa, Paul Roos stated that'from Cape Agulhas to the Zambezi, South Africa is united and all the differences must be forgotten'.

greeted the arrival of the cricket team with a profile of Abe Bailey, described as 'a strong Imperialist who fought in the Boer War'. The profile emphasised the fact that character was every bit as important as ability, saying that: 'A man to be in the South African eleven must not only be a good cricketer, but he must have concentration, energy, and an enthusiasm which will bring him to every match thoroughly