They played against a privately raised team organised by millionaire business tycoon Derrick Harold Robins, the organiser of a cricket festival at the ground.

The DH Robins XI continued a tradition of teams selected by rich benefactors which dated back to the earliest days of the sport.

Yet only a few weeks before, Robins had also taken a team to South Africa at the height of the apartheid era. Remarkably, the visit provoked little international protest.

Robins was a successful businessman who transformed Banbury Buildings into a major public company.

In the early 1960s, he became chairman of Coventry City, then languishing in Division Three of the Football League, and appointed Jimmy Hill as manager.

Within six years Coventry had won promotion to the top flight of English football, and Hill left shortly afterwards to become a television executive.

Robins had played two first class cricket matches for Warwickshire in 1947 and was a wicketkeeper in his prime.

Twenty-two years later, he led his own cricket team in matches against the West Indies and New Zealand touring teams.

He recruited many international stars including Pakistani brothers Mushtaq and Sadiq Mohammad, who both scored centuries.

In 1971, at the age of 57, Robins again played for his team, this time against India.

The Association of Cricket Statisticians list him as the second oldest to play first class cricket since the Second World War, but he had now set his sights much further afield than Eastbourne.

He had made no secret of his admiration for South Africans Barry Richards and Mike Procter, both starring in English county cricket.

"Cricket as it should be is played by men like Richards and Procter," Robins declared.

South Africa had not competed at the Olympics since 1960, but were not formally suspended from the Olympic Movement until 1970.

The fulcrum of the South African sporting world was, however, provided by rugby union and cricket, both non-Olympic sports.

The 1968 England cricket tour of South Africa had been cancelled after the South African Government refused to accept South African born Basil D'Oliveira in England's team.

He had been unable to represent his homeland because of the colour of his skin.

In the apartheid era, individuals were classified as "native", "coloured", "Asian" or "white", and not even permitted to sit together at sporting events.

In 1969, a visit by the South African rugby union team to the British Isles was targeted by anti-apartheid protests.

The cricketers were to visit England in 1970, but South African student Peter Hain organised a campaign to "Stop the Seventy Tour".

Cricket grounds, anticipating protests, installed barbed wire fences and the British Government eventually ordered the tour's cancellation.

In 1971, events followed a similar course in Australia where South Africa had also been scheduled to play.

On both occasions, a Rest of the World side was hastily formed for a replacement series.

This included South Africans alongside West Indians, Indians and Pakistanis.

By now, the Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles had discouraged sporting contact with South Africa.

Many lamented that some South African cricketers had found their international careers curtailed as a result of the actions of their Government.

Richards played only four Tests and Procter seven because of the ban.

It is an argument which resonates in the current debate on the desirability of Russian and Belarusian participation in international sport.

South African cricket boss Jack Cheetham invited Robins to bring a team over in early 1973. BBC cricket commentator Brian Johnston was appointed as the squad's press officer, and outlined the aims.

"To enable the top South African cricketers to play against opposition from overseas and to make it possible for the cricket starved South African cricket lovers to see their 'Test' side in action," Johnston said.

The touring party was captained by Warwickshire fast bowler David Brown who had played 26 Tests for England. It included fellow paceman Bob Willis and batsman John Hampshire, who had both helped England regain the Ashes from Australia in 1971.

They were joined by leg spinner Robin Hobbs and wicketkeeper John Murray as the other experienced member of the squad.

The non internationals included Lancastrian Frank Hayes, Northamptonshire's all-rounder Peter Willey, Middlesex batsman Clive Radley and swing bowler John Lever, all destined to play for England before the decade was over.

Each received a cap emblazoned with the emblem of a crouching wicketkeeper.

"This is a wonderful time for flair, dash and grace, this is why I have chosen a young team to take to South Africa," Robins told the Rand Daily Mail.

"We are not interested in political problems, cricket is in, everything else is out."

Programmes produced in English and Afrikaans reflected the financial support given to the tour by South African banks and other industries.

The Robins team were only given a couple of days to acclimatise from an English winter before the tour opened on New Year's Day in 1973. Yet everything began well against Eastern Province in Port Elizabeth.

Radley and county colleague Mike Smith made centuries in an opening stand of 215 before they declared at 306-4.

Eastern Province were dismissed for 218 but the tourists subsided to 136 all out in their second inning to lose by six wickets.

Apart from a victory against Natal in a three day match and three wins in one day matches, success proved elusive.

The tour ended with a match against a very strong South African Invitation XI in Johannesburg.

Richards scored a century as South Africa reached 387-9 declared. The Robins were dismissed for 118 and 152 to lose by an innings and 117 runs.

"We will do our best to tell the true story of South African cricket without making any political points, to put a picture of South African cricket which had not been put before," Robins vowed before returning home.

Cheetham said: "We are especially grateful that Mr Robins in pursuit of his love of the game puts cricket first and in so doing, cuts across all boundaries which might seek to constrain the playing of the game."

A second DH Robins touring party was invited to South Africa later in 1973. It would be "very much stronger", Robins predicted.

"They will be good enough to beat the Springboks and I firmly believe, give them a hiding," he said.

The squad was captained by 42-year-old Test veteran Brian Close, now leading Somerset after many successful years with Yorkshire.

The team included Pakistani Younis Ahmed and West Indian all-rounder John Shepherd.

"The inclusion of two non-white cricketers constitutes a tremendous breakthrough for cricket in this country," South African Cricket Annual editor Geoffrey Chettle wrote.

This time the team drew two matches against the South African invitational team but in the decisive encounter, home skipper Eddie Barlow struck a towering 211 in a score of 528-8 and the hosts won by an innings and 83 runs.

A match in New Brighton township against an African side was washed out by rain. Meanwhile, Hassan Howa, the leading official for "coloured" cricketers, called for the tours to cease and had refused to arrange a match against the Robins.

"I do not use the term 'multi-racial cricket', I use the term 'normal cricket' and that is cricket played by all races at all levels with equal facilities and opportunities," Howa insisted.

"This is a most unfortunate stand by Mr Howa," countered Robins. Despite their trips to South Africa, the Indians had no objections to meeting the team raised by Robins at Eastbourne in 1974.

He took another side back to South Africa in 1975, boosted by the presence of Australian fast bowler Max Walker.

This time, they were able to play matches in the townships against what was described as the South African "African" XI at Soweto and Langa.

As in previous tours, the finale featured a match against the South African invitational side.

For the first time two African players, Edward Habane and Sedick Conrad, were both chosen.

Critics dismissed it as "window dressing",

In June 1976, further evidence of the abnormal society came when police opened fire on a demonstration against the introduction of Afrikaans in Soweto schools.

At least 160 died including 12-year-old schoolboy Hector Pietersen.

The United Nations passed a resolution condemning the the South African Government "for its resort to massive violence against and killings of the African people including schoolchildren and students and others opposing racial discrimination".

Later that month an official New Zealand rugby tour of South Africa also began.

Although rugby union was not then part of the Olympic programme, the tour prompted many African nations to withdraw from the Montreal 1976 Olympics rather than compete against athletes from New Zealand.

In 1977, the Gleneagles Agreement formally set out Commonwealth opposition to sporting contact.

In the decade ahead there were to be many renegade tours but South Africa were finally re-admitted to the International Cricket Council after the release of Nelson Mandela in 1990.

They played their first official one day matches in India in November 1991, encounters which would have been impossible in the apartheid era.

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