Rowe sorry for ‘Rebel team’ South Africa tours

Jun 22, 2011 Sports

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Players’ Pavilion at Sabina Park named him, Ends named after Holding and Walsh

By Sean Devers in Jamaica
In association with Digicel, Western Union, Queensway and Jamaica Pegasus

The Players Pavilion at Sabina Park was Monday named after former Jamaican West Indies batsman Lawrence George Rowe but not without controversy.

The Northern and Southern ends of the ground were also named after former Jamaica and West Indies fast bowling greats Michael Holding and Courtney Walsh, the first fast bowler to captain the West Indies in Test cricket.
The 62-year-old Rowe issued a public apology yesterday for his involvement in the two Rebel tours to the then Apartheid ruled South Africa in 1983 and 1984.
This was after the announcement of the naming of the Pavilion in his honour raised objections from sections of Jamaica, which along with Guyana, were the strongest critics of the racial regime in South Africa among the West Indies cricket playing territories.
Rowe averaged 43. 55 from 30 Tests with seven centuries including a world record double and single hundred on debut in 1972 at Sabina Park, a ground on which he also scored three First-Class double centuries and three centuries in four Tests.
The right-handed Rowe, regarded as one of the world’s most elegant batsmen, was run out for 50 in the first innings of his last Test in the contentious 1980 tour of New Zealand.
Three years later he was the Captain of the West Indies ‘Rebel’ teams which toured South Africa at a time when that country was banned from International cricket because of their racial policies. The West Indian players were afforded ‘Honorary whites’ status during their stay in South Africa.
The first Rebel team included Guyanese Alvin Kallicharran and now cocaine addict Richard Austin, who is mentally unstable and was chased away from the boundary-edge by Jamaican Police during yesterday’s play at Sabina Park.
Guyanese Colin Croft, Faoud Bacchus and Monty Lynch joined Kallicharran in December of 1983 for the second Rebel Tour to South Africa and all those involved in the those tours were banned from representing their Regional teams.
The bans were eventually lifted and Barbadian Ezra Moseley even played for the West Indies.
Rowe, who now resides in the USA, said that since the Jamaica Cricket Association saw it fit to honour him he felt he had to publically apologise to Jamaicans and the West Indians before accepting the gesture.
Rowe, who looked fit and healthy, said that he left Jamaica due to the hostility he received from some but has returned often and worked for a Television network during the 2007 World Cup held here.   “I am very sincere when I say I am sorry and it was good today as I walked across the ground that I was applauded and remembered since most of those here would have never seen me bat,” Rowe said.
He described yesterday as the final nail in the ‘death of that tour’ for him saying that he was just about 31 years at that time and felt the South African trip ended his international career prematurely.
The old timers say that Rowe’s batting reminded them of Sir Frank Worrell and while Rowe said he has heard that, he informed that he idolized Sir Garfield Sobers but played in his own way.
An enigmatic, elegant and composed player, Rowe’s career was often affected by injuries, an eyesight problem and an allergy to grass, but when he was on song his drives were immaculate and his late cuts out of the Keeper’s gloves and his 302 against England in Barbados in 1974 was poetry in motion.
Rowe admitted to whistling when batting but said it was an unconscious way of concentrating and said a few times he was asked to stop by Umpires after the close-in fielders complained.
“Sabina Park has many memories for me and today is one of the most memorable,” said Rowe.       Before taking questions from the Media, Rowe read a prepared statement which said.
“It is common knowledge that 28 years ago I led a team of West Indian cricketers on a tour of Apartheid South Africa. South Africa at that time was banned from international cricket because of the Apartheid regime that was in force in the country.
The tour, which along with other such ones was grouped as the “Rebel Tours”, was organised and conducted without the approval of the West Indies Cricket Board of Control. Such tours in fact were outlawed by cricket boards all over the world, by governments, including the government of Jamaica, by the International Cricket Council and by other international organizations including the United Nations.
Understandably, the tour offended the people of Jamaica and throughout the cricket playing countries of the Caribbean.  Today, I sincerely apologise to the cricket fraternity of the Caribbean and the world,” Rowe concluded.
Many Jamaicans said yesterday that while they are proud of Rowe’s cricketing achievements they felt betrayed by his decision to go to South Africa adding that his apology so long after the episode did not mean much to them.
While Walsh was at Sabina yesterday, Holding was absent due to his TV duties covering the England, Sri Lanka series.

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