Conceptos básicos

“First the hunter, the missionary and the mercenary, next the soldier and the politician, and then the cricketer – that is the history of British colonialism. And of these

civilising influences the last may, perhaps, be said to do the least harm”1. So wrote the

historian and cricketer Cecil Headlam.

The game of cricket is perhaps one of the most enduring and visible legacies of the

British Empire. This dissertation was an attempt at exploring this “benign”2 influence of the

British Empire during the period of decolonisation. Men’s cricket was governed in this period by the Imperial Cricket Conference, a body formed at the height of imperial zeal. Chapter 1 introduced the Imperial Cricket Conference and discussed the imperial motives behind its formation. It drew on a variety of secondary sources to reconstruct major developments in the history of the ICC. Chapter 2 aimed to familiarise the reader with the political backdrop against which the dissertation desired to study the ICC. What were the major landmarks attained during the movement from the label of ‘Empire’ to ‘British Commonwealth’ to ‘Commonwealth’? Was the reconciliation of the old with the new a smooth process? Was decolonisation a story of constant decline in imperial sentiment? How did inter-governmental relations within the new multi-racial Commonwealth of Nations compare with the public rhetoric of family and familiarity? The chapter also conducted a brief, somewhat superficial survey of an array of non-governmental societies, movements and associations—deemed comparable or roughly analogous to the ICC—and their response to changes wrought by decolonisation. Chapter 3 shepherded the dissertation towards its central concern, the ICC, between 1947 and 1965. Through a discussion of the role of the MCC within the imperial scheme of things; the construction and projection of the post-war Imperial Memorial Gallery dedicated to martyred cricketers in London, the ‘nerve-centre’ of both cricket and the Empire; hierarchies within the world of imperial–Commonwealth cricket; ‘proxy’ representation by

1 _{Oxford historian and member of the travelling cricket side ‘Oxford Authentics’ that toured India in the winter}

of 1902-03, Cecil Headlam, quoted in Ramachandra Guha, ‘Cricket and Politics in Colonial India’, Past & Present, Vol. 161 (Nov 1998), p. 166; Odendaal, p. 32.

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English MCC members of cricket boards of the ‘old’ Commonwealth; and finally, the changes of 1964-65 which involved the new name ‘International Cricket Conference’ and admission of non-Commonwealth countries as Associates, Chapter 3 shed light on the intricacies of the ICC. Chapter 4 added to this by examining the position of New Zealand, the admission of Pakistan and the exit of South Africa. Together, Chapters 3 and 4 exposed the machinations that occurred in the meetings of the ICC. These chapters also revealed the extent to which cricket was affected by and was forced to respond to political changes related to decolonisation. The clash of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ Commonwealth, much-chronicled in commentary on the political Commonwealth, was evidently echoed in the world of cricket. Chapter 5 fused the previous chapters together. It compared various tropes, attributes and characteristics displayed by the political Commonwealth, the non-governmental Commonwealth and the ICC. The drive to present members of the Commonwealth as a consensual family bound by informality and distinguished from the rest of the world; the recruitment of hospitality for the same; diffusion and reception of values such as ‘fair play’ emphasised as ‘an essential factor’ in Britain’s dealings; the presence of unacknowledged hierarchies across the board in the Commonwealth; substantial (if coincidental in some places) congruence in the chronology of landmark developments; and the tendency to ‘make virtue of necessity’ stood out. Using this juxtaposition in Chapter 5 as a framework and drawing on similar research by scholars of imperial and Commonwealth history, Chapter 6 commented on the ICC’s response to decolonisation. It concluded that in comparison to its reasonably comparable non-government counterparts and the political Commonwealth, the ICC was extremely slow to respond to the evolving political realities. Described as an informal institution that linked members of the Empire–Commonwealth, cricket clung to its imperial past for a very long time and unlike the others, did not follow up the ‘family’ rhetoric with any voluntary engagement with decolonisation. Chapter 6 also introduced literature on transnational perspectives in history. Empires, as historians such as Iriye and Hopkins have pointed out, were inherently transnational conglomerates. The Commonwealth of Nations that emerged from the British Empire offers an excellent present-day example of a truly transnational organisation that encompasses the global North and South. The chapter briefly highlighted (a) the contribution of the Commonwealth to the intellectual history of the twentieth century; (b) the Commonwealth as an early example of inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations; and (c) the genuinely transnational—defined here as people-to-people contact and an inter-constitutive North–South relationship—connections of

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the Commonwealth in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (whilst staying alert to avoid the feel-good trap to which transnational perspectives can be susceptible).

Reflecting on the parameters and extension of the dissertation, perhaps a further study could explore the roles of individuals involved closely with the ICC. What can we learn about and from the transnational network of powerful individuals from the Commonwealth at the heart of the ICC (see Appendix A)? During this period, the political Commonwealth saw gatherings of nationalist leaders. The Commonwealth Press Union conferences saw editors and media-persons with nationalist leanings and strong opinions. Some CPU members reflected the dynastic tendencies of media ownership in their countries. The CPU conferences and the Unofficial Commonwealth Relations Conferences saw greater participation by

women as delegates3. How did the profile of ICC representatives sent by member boards to

the “gentlemanly comfortable meetings” of the ICC fare in comparison? Relatedly, as with the MCC running the ICC, the CPU’s central governing executive council was British, based in Britain and helmed by powerful British press barons. To Denis Cryle, “[a]t first appearance, the stability of the British-based executive suggested an organization with

uninterrupted links to its imperial past.”4 The same can be said of the ICC. As an

organisation, the CPU was a mix of imperial idealism and self-interest. Interestingly, however, as noted in Chapter 6, reformers and voices from member boards (Australia, Canada, India and early inclusion of smaller members) were much louder and more effective in the CPU than in the ICC. Further, a study could inquire into the relationship between ICC member boards. It could ask whether ICC representatives from the ‘new’ Commonwealth, whilst calling for equality and fairness at the international level, stayed consistently scrupulous in their approach to the management of domestic cricket affairs. If the administration of cricket in Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa in this period was affected by racial politics, class and power relations, and a mind-set that reeked of an earlier era, the BCCI was beset by intense regional and internal power struggles, the BCCP as noted in Chapter 4 was affected by political and military interference, and the WICBOC

3 _{Denis Cryle, ‘The Press Union at the End of Empire: Anglo-Australian Perspectives, 1946–1965’, Journalism,}

Vol. 12.8 (2011), p. 1007 & p. 1011; David McIntyre, ‘The Unofficial Commonwealth Relations Conferences, 1933-59: Precursors of the Tri-Sector Commonwealth’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 36.4 (2008), p. 591 & p. 598.