By 1969, in the wake of the D'Oliveira Affair of 1968, South Africa's cricketing isolation was accelerating. The ICC had cancelled the England tour of South Africa in 1968-69; pressure was building from newly independent African nations in the ICC; and the 1970 Rest of the World tour — arranged as a replacement for South Africa's cancelled England tour — was itself boycotted by several nations. South Africa would play their last Test in March 1970.
South Africa had been in an uneasy international position since the early 1960s, when they left the Commonwealth. Their cricket board's refusal to countenance mixed-race cricket — or to select non-white players — was tolerated by the ICC until the D'Oliveira case made the issue impossible to ignore.
The D'Oliveira Affair of 1968 — South Africa's refusal to accept Basil D'Oliveira as part of the England touring party because he was of Cape Malay origin — had made South Africa's apartheid policy an unavoidable cricket issue. The ICC voted in 1969 to cancel England's 1968-69 tour of South Africa. African ICC members pressed for South Africa's complete suspension. The 1970 England summer, originally planned to host a South African tour, was replaced by a five-match Rest of the World series — a compromise that satisfied nobody fully. Meanwhile, the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign in England, led by Peter Hain, threatened disruption of any South African sports tour. South Africa played their last Test cricket — against Australia, at Port Elizabeth and Johannesburg — in March 1970. They were then effectively excluded from Test cricket for 22 years, not returning until November 1991 against India in Kolkata.
Sep 1968: D'Oliveira not selected for England's South Africa tour
Sep 1968: Cartwright withdraws; D'Oliveira replaces him
Sep 1968: South Africa refuse to accept D'Oliveira; tour cancelled
1969: ICC cancels further South African series
Jan-Mar 1970: South Africa's last Tests — v Australia
1970: South Africa excluded from international cricket
Nov 1991: South Africa return to Test cricket v India in Calcutta
The end of the road for South African Test cricket, reached in 1969-70 after the D'Oliveira Affair made the international community unwilling to overlook apartheid's cricket expressions.
South Africa's 22-year isolation reshaped world cricket — it denied the game the batting of Graeme Pollock, the bowling of Mike Procter and Barry Richards's batsmanship — and gave subsequent cricketers a clear precedent that politics and sport cannot always be separated.
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