David Sheppard his clerical career and declined to tour unless required as a captain. In 1956 he was recalled to play Australia and made 113 in the Fourth Test at Old Trafford, where Jim Laker famously took 19 wickets and England won by an innings. He refused to play against the touring South Africans in 1960, and was a vocal opponent of the proposed MCC tour in 1968–69 which was ultimately cancelled after the South African government refused to allow Basil D'Oliveira to play. Sheppard was willing to take a sabbatical from his church mission in the East End in order to
D'Oliveira affair to choose him. The latter part of the plan depended on the MCC realising that picking D'Oliveira would mean no tour, but in making such attempts the South Africans risked public discovery, which would cause the tour to be cancelled anyway. The bribery was planned from an early stage, but had to be postponed when D'Oliveira did not return to South Africa before the 1968 season. The second part of the plan was put into operation in March 1968. Vorster resolved to send a secret message to the MCC through Lord Cobham, a member and former president of the MCC