Peter Robinson
Lifting the Covers: The Inside Story of South African Cricket by Luke Alfred (Spearhead)
Luke Alfred quit his jobs as The Star and The Sunday Independent’s senior cricket writer earlier this year a decision that may or may not have been connected with the imminent publication of this book. Whatever the case, I hope Lifting the Covers will help keep the wolf from the door as he forges a career as a freelancercumauthor.
Initially Alfred set out to write a rumination on the state of the game in this country, wrapping it around an account of the 2000 South African tour of India, a tour he covered. A number of issues had already insinuated themselves in his mind and by using the tour as a backdrop he felt he might be able to tease them out (to use one of his favourite expressions).
Alfred had wondered about the failed South African campaigns in England in 1998 and 1999, the transformation process, the sometimes bitter squabbling that had accompanied the 50 clean sweep against the West Indies in 1998/9, the political intrigues, the Makhaya Ntini rape case and the curious case of Alan Badenhorst, the Eastern Province B captain banned for racially abusing an opponent.
Then Hansiegate exploded. In a way, this was fortuitous for Alfred because he’d already spent some time considering the background against which Hansie Cronj fell from grace.
If the tour to India makes up the skeleton of the book, Alfred’s attempts to pin down the elusive personality of the former South African captain form its intellect. Ultimately, Alfred may take us no closer to the impulses, base and otherwise, that drive Cronj, but the author’s struggle to come to terms with the scandal mirror those of an entire country.
Alfred is passionate about cricket. He admires those who excel at the game, but he’s old enough to know that proficiency at sport is no guarantee of a rounded personality. One of his earliest experiences as a young autograph hunter was being told to “fuck off” by Greg Chappell. He believes, though, in the basic decency of the game and much of Lifting the Covers concerns South African cricket’s attempt to come to terms with its past and its search for a future.
Lifting the Covers, then, is part travelogue, part cricket reportage, part social analysis and part reflection on the role of the game in a country trying to come to terms with its divided past.
It is to Alfred’s credit that he pulls all of these together into a whole that is both thoughtful and entertaining. Many of the most enjoyable sections of the book consist of the author musing on his own reactions to different places and circumstances.
At root, Alfred still has faith in the game: “Cricket, more than any other facet of life in postapartheid South Africa, has provided a blueprint for how the demands of the transition can be negotiqated”.
Lifting the Covers is an honest, admirable book, and a decent read at that. It should be essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand where the game is in this country and where it might go.