P Weaver: No Sympathy For 'Castaway' Cartwright (27 Nov 1995)

Electronic Telegraph Monday 27 November 1995

No sympathy for `castaway` Cartwright

Paul Weaver on the man whose withdrawal from the party precipitated the affair

TOM Cartwright remembers the D`Oliveira Affair better than anyone else - it was his withdrawal from the England party to tour South Africa which in September 1968 led to Dolly`s belated call-up.

Cartwright, 60, one of the best medium-pace bowlers to play for England, never got the chance to add to his five Tests after that.

The man who taught Ian Botham how to bowl when player-coach at Somerset is now living in Neath and is national coach for the Welsh Cricket Association. "I remember everyone feeling sorry for Dolly - but no one felt sorry for me!

"I was getting on for 30 when I broke into the England side in 1964 and it was disappointing that most of my injury problems started at about that time.

"At the end of the 1968 season I was suffering with a frozen shoulder.

"I didn`t play for Warwickshire in the Gillette Cup final against Sussex but it wasn`t until a little later, after a lot of physio work, that I pulled out of the tour party.

"That was when they called up Dolly. It was hardly a like for like replacement because I was a bowler who batted a bit while he was a wonderful batsman who was not really a front-line bowler.

"But it was a cock-up. It was illogical not to pick him in the first place, especially after his big hundred at the Oval. I felt sorry for the blokes who never got the chance to tour South Africa - at least I had been there in 1964-65."

Cartwright, who retired in 1977 with 1,536 wickets at the miserly average of 19.11, feels the cricket world was right to isolate South Africa after they rejected d`Oliveira.

"I felt that the only way to bring them into line was to deprive them of sport and I`ve been proved right. I remember being appalled by all the hypocrites who said you should not let politics enter sport.

"They had forgotten that it was South Africa who brought the politics in when they said no to Dolly.

"Anyway, cricket has always been a very political game.

"The funny thing now is that I live round the corner from Peter Hain, who was a real hero when he helped stop the proposed 1970 tour of England by South Africa."

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/et/)