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Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 1, 1795–1914

André Odendaal, Krish Reddy, Christopher Merrett, and Jonty Winch
Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold, Volume 1, 1795–1914
ISBN: 978-1-928246-13-8
$39.95
2016/467 pages
Distributed for Best Red, an imprint of HSRC Press
Includes extensive photos
"Simply the finest book ever written about sport in South Africa." —Tony Collins, former director of the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, De Montfort University

"Here is something immensely important and satisfying.... It is an expiation of a long and shameful story: how the game that prides itself on fair play collaborated with cruelty, not just for a while but for decade after decade. And persuaded itself that most of this history did not exist. It is beautifully done as well." —Matthew Engel, former editor of Wisden

"Magnificent. A grand narrative, superb in its design and execution, busting the myth that South Africa’s cricket history was merely a white man’s story.... Revisionist history at its best." —Bernard Whimpress, coauthor of The History of Australian Cricket

DESCRIPTION

The first of its kind for any sport in South Africa: a cricket love story of epic dimensions, full of sometimes shocking details. Cricket and Conquest fundamentally revises long-established foundational narratives of early South African cricket,  reaching beyond whites-only mainstream histories to integrate at every stage and in every region the experiences of black, as well as women, players.

In this book and its sequels, the authors reveal how racism came to be built into the very fabric of South African cricket's culture and traditions, and how the sport was tied to the broader historical processes that shaped the country.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

André Odendaal is honorary professor in history and heritage studies at the University of the Western Cape. Krish Reddy is author of The Other Side: A Miscellany of Black Cricket in Natal and coauthor of Blacks in Whites: A Century of Cricket Struggles in KwaZulu-Natal. Christopher Merrett is a historian whose work focuses on the history and politics of South Africa sports. Jonty Winch has written extensively on sports and politics; his most recent book is England's Youngest Captain: The Life and Times of Monty Bowden and Two South African Journalists.

CONTENTS

  • Introduction.
  • WAR GAME, 1795–1870s.
  • Cricket Comes by Boat to Africa.
  • First Port of Call: Cape Town, 1795.
  • Second Port of Call: The Eastern Cape, 1810s.
  • The Beginnings of a Unique African Cricket Tradition.
  • Berthing in Port Natal, 1840s.
  • Cricket Reaches the Interior Highveld: The Boer Republics, 1850s.
  • The New Rush: Diamonds, Dust, and Cricket in the New Territory of Griqualand West, 1870s.
  • Southern Africa and the Spread of Cricket Across the World.
  • AFRICA'S FIRST COMPETITIONS, 1876–1890.
  • Cricket, War, and Change.
  • Champion Bat Ushers in New Era: The Launch of Inter-Town Tournaments, 1875/6.
  • "Native" Champions: A Second Inter-Town Tournament, 1884/5.
  • Abantu namaNgesi: Cricket, Color, and Citizenship in the 1880s.
  • The MCC of the Cape Colony: Stiff Upper Lips and Prejudice in the "Classic and Perennially Fragrant Metropolis."
  • The Balance Shifts from the Military to the Money: The Rise of Kimberley and the Birth of Johannesburg.
  • Subjugated Memories: Reconstituting the Statistics of the Inter-Town Tournaments, 1876–1898.
  • THE DOORS OPEN: THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL TOUR AND VISIONS OF AN INCLUSIVE FUTURE, 1888–1894.
  • "Time for South Africa to Send Home Something Besides Gold, Diamonds, and Millionaires": From Inter-Town to International Cricket.
  • First International Team Arrives in Africa.
  • Journey That Inscribed Empire and Cricket Onto the Landscape of a Subcontinent.
  • The First South African Team and Test Matches.
  • "Home," "New Chums," and the Assertion of South African Cricket Identities.
  • "Gentlemen, We Beg You to Reconsider Your Decision": The Position of African Cricketers by the 1890s.
  • "The Most Gorgeous of Eastern Spectacles": A Third Inter-Town Tournament Launched, January 1890.
  • The Formation of the South African Cricket Association, April 1890.
  • Cricket and the Imperial Mission: The Rise of Johannesburg and the First Currie Cup.
  • "What Man's Accomplish'd Ye Can Do": Selecting a Second South African Team, April 1891.
  • Demon Spofforth of Africa: The Assertion of Inclusive Identities and the First Taste of International Cricket for Black Players, March 1892.
  • THE DOORS CLOSE: INSTITUTIONALIZING CRICKET AS A SPORT FOR "EUROPEANS" AND MEN ONLY, 1894 ONWARDS.
  • Fateful Decision: Rhodes and Milton Exclude "Krom" Hendricks From the First South African Tour to Britain, 1894.
  • The Cape Town Establishment Institutionalizes Racism in Cricket.
  • The Color Bar in Cricket Becomes Fixed.
  • "Like a Rather Sunburned English Player": One Cricketer Who Bucked the System.
  • "Neither Ladies nor Cricketers": Women and Exclusions of Another Kind.
  • Women at the Crease.
  • PROVINCIAL AND INTERNATIONAL CRICKET BECOME THE BUILDING BLOCKS OF A NATIONAL GAME, 1890–1914.
  • Formation of the South African Coloured Cricket Board, 1903.
  • The First Inter-Colonial and Inter-Provincial Tournaments: SACA's Currie Cup and SACCB's Barnato Memorial Trophy.
  • Statistics for the Currie Cup and Barnato Memorial Trophy Tournaments, 1889/90 to 1912/13.
  • Old Wine in New Vessels: The Five Cricket Provinces in the Cape Colony.
  • The New Entrants: Transvaal, Natal, Orange Free State, and Rhodesia Enter Representative Cricket.
  • "The Bonds of the Union Within the Empire": South Africa SACA in International Cricket Before World War I.
  • EPILOGUE: IMPERIALISM, RACISM, AND THE SHAPING OF A NATIONAL CRICKET ETHOS.
  • A Long, Long Journey.
     
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