Salisbury Sports Club tournament in 1970 to be racially homogenous, this also applied to visiting squads. The South African government provoked overseas ire in 1968 when it refused entry to the England cricket team because its proposed tour party included Basil D'Oliveira, a Cape Coloured. Amid the ensuing scandal, Marylebone Cricket Club (which then governed English cricket) called off the tour. Two years later, a tour of England by the South Africa cricket team was cancelled by the English Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB) at a week's notice following public protests and immense pressure from the UK government. South Africa did not play another official
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