On August 28 1968, the England selectors met at Lord’s cricket ground to choose a side for the 1968/69 tour to South Africa. Among the in-form batsmen almost certain of selection was the black Cape Town-born Basil D’Oliveira, who, excluded from first class cricket in his own country, had moved to the United Kingdom in 1960. To an outcry in Britain and jubilation among apartheid’s supporters, D’Oliveira was not picked. When he later joined the side, the South African Government was outraged and the tour was cancelled, triggering events that sealed South Africa’s sporting isolation for the next 25 years.