It was the best of times, it was the best of times

Of Gawie, Omar, Kotie and The Long Snake

It is World Test Championship Final Week at Lord’s. Naturally, those of us of a certain age find ourselves indulging in nostalgia. We don’t have much else, after all. South Africa famously whitewashed Australia 4-0 in 1970, the final series before apartheid-induced isolation. For those with a broader interest, the last cricket Tests played in the country prior to expulsion were actually those played by the women against New Zealand in March 1972. Your correspondent was blissfully unaware of either of these series. My badly timed introduction to cricket was in October 1972. So it was that I loved the game for 20 years before the first time a Test match was played in South Africa that I was aware of. Fortunately, my entry into doing a bit of work in cricket was better timed. I had been scoring and doing stats on provincial cricket for SABC Radio since 1988 when India arrived for the first series in South Africa after the return to international cricket, and (of course) their first tour to the country. I was well enough placed by then to secure a gig with All India Radio. I worked on the 4-Test series with the solidly old school Suresh Suraiya and a brilliant young commentator named Harsha Bhogle, broadcasting to an audience of 40 million, apparently.

18 months later South Africa went on the first post-unity tour to England and I simply had to be there. The first Test was at Lord’s starting 21 July 1994, and it was a magnificent occasion. I spent it in a toilet in the Warner Stand, working for Afrikaans radio. Ok, I will admit that ‘toilet’ is a bit of poetic licence. Those were the days pre the wonderful modern media facilities in the space-ship at the Nursery End. We were put in the ‘overflow’ area which was a storeroom that had been carved out of the toilet facilities in the Warner Stand. To say it was cramped is an understatement. There was barely enough room for two commentators in the front and I spent the Test match sitting behind the commentators on one of the boxes that Gawie Swart the producer used to transport his equipment, scoring on my lap. I could see the business end of the cricket and not much else. The match was played out in off-the-charts humidity, the likes of which I hadn’t even experienced in Durban, and I didn’t help myself by absurdly committing to a jacket and tie for the duration. This was Lord’s after all. By mid-afternoon the smell from the toilet was not pleasant to say the least, but the thoughtful designers of the stand had strategically placed a window so that you could still watch the cricket while standing at the urinal. You would have had a better view from there than I had.

The two commentators were Kotie Grové, Professor of Greek and pioneering Afrikaans cricket commentator, and Omar Henry, left-arm spinning all-rounder who had made his Test debut aged 40 back in the Test against India in Durban in November 1992. Gawie Swart, who called himself Gavin Black (‘Swart’ means ‘black’ in Afrikaans) while in England, was the producer and an extraordinary man, capable (it seemed) of organising anything. Most famously, he once arranged a braai for the South African team on the roof-top of a Kanpur hotel on the first Test tour to India in 1996. On one of the days at Lord’s there was a streaker (male) shortly before lunch and Gawie passed a note to Kotie indicating that the presenter in the studio wanted to chat with him when play stopped. This duly happened and dear Kotie, thinking the conversation was off-air, was asked what he thought about the streaker and he replied “Ek wou gesê hy het a lang slang” (“I was going to say that he had a long snake”). The conversation was, of course, on-air and perhaps not entirely appropriate on a conservative radio station in 1994. Much laughter and precious memories ensued.

Anyway, in case you are interested, Kepler Wessels made a hundred, Allan Donald took a five-for, and South Africa bowled England out for 99 in the fourth innings for a famous and emphatic win by 356 runs. Astonishingly, we were allowed onto the outfield after the conclusion where we watched Mike Procter, the coach, waving the new South African flag from the balcony before he was told he was not allowed to. After that, it felt like all the South Africans in London descended upon The Lord’s Tavern bar next to the Grace Gates. It was the best of times, it was the best of times.