Thanks to the encouragement and energy of the editorial team of Bruce Murray, Richard Parry and Jonty Winch Cricket and Society in South Africa, 1910-1971 is now in print as part of Palgrave’s series of studies in sport and politics. The largest guffaw of the BSSH’s* recent conference came when one of the delegates said that sport and politics shouldn’t mix. Our book is a c. 70,000 word refutation of that statement.

My own chapter looks at the career of Percy Sherwell, first captain of the ‘Summerboks’ and all round imperial biffer for Britain. Further chapters broaden the scope of the traditional historiography of cricket in South Africa beyond tales of great white men to examine cricket amongst the black and Asian communities as well as women’s cricket. Or as the publisher puts it the book

• explores Southern Africa’s sporting image, grounding it in analyses of the subaltern class that have been hitherto marginalised or ignored
• traces imperial networks beyond the UK as mediator of empire, and brings women’s role in the sporting politics of Empire into clearer focus and
• challenges the dominant narrative of Imperial sports history by interrogating and filling in the gaps and silences in the record of the excluded

Naturally, I would encourage anyone with an interest in cricket history to buy a copy, or ask your library to secure one. Further details can be found here.

*British Society of Sports Historians

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