The Politics of South African Cricket analyses the relationship between politics and sport, in particular cricket, in South Africa. South African Cricket embraces an ethos that is symbolic of a wider held belief system and as such has distinctive political connotations in the region. Sport in South Africa is certainly influenced by forces beyond the playing field, but politics too can be influenced by the social and economic force of sport. Focusing on the sports boycott as a political strategy, Jon Gemmell analyses the relationship between sport and politics through a historical analysis of South African cricket. He employs case studies to explore the relationship between politics and South African cricket and argues convincingly that cricket assisted the reform process by undermining the legitimacy of the apartheid regime.

'Caught Behind' chronicles the events and political intrigue that led to South Africa's cricket isolation in the apartheid era and its eventual readmission and throws new light on the role of black cricket and black cricketers in South Africa, who until recently were omitted from the country's sporting history.

This book explores how cricket in South Africa was shaped by society and society by cricket. It demonstrates the centrality of cricket in the evolving relationship between culture, sport and politics starting with South Africa as the beating heart of the imperial project and ending with the country as an international pariah. The contributors explore the tensions between fragmentation and unity, on and off the pitch, in the context of the racist ideology of empire, its ‘arrested development’ and the reliance of South Africa on a racially based exploitative labour system. This edited collection uncovers the hidden history of cricket, society, and empire in defining a multiplicity of South African identities, and recognises the achievements of forgotten players and their impact.

In this searing and revealing account of cricket in post-apartheid South Africa, Ashwin Desai deftly tells a story of promise and despair, the story of a new pitch; a quick start full of hope, followed by a steady erosion of the commitments needed to fulfil the promise of a level-playing field. Economic and political compromises contributed to holding back the pulling aside of the covers of race and class privilege. Alongside this, the hurried hollowing out of the 'politics of cricket', aided by black administrators assuming the accoutrements of office, saw very little internal challenge to the lack of transformation. In a book where the love of cricket shines through, Ashwin Desai makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the farce that was post-apartheid cricket administration and the characters that played such a role in the charade.

1999 North American Society for Sports History Book of the Year Douglas Booth looks at the role of sport in the fostering of a new national identity in South Africa. He analyzes the effect of the 30-year sport boycott but concludes that sport will never unite South Africans except in the most fleeting and superficial manner.