Sporting boycott of South Africa during the apartheid era earliest days with the coloured cricketer Krom Hendricks excluded from provincial and national teams from the 1890s. However, the cricketing boycott was prompted by the reaction of the South African authorities to the selection of Basil D'Oliveira, a "Cape Coloured" South African, for the England national cricket team in 1968; see the D'Oliveira affair. The 1970 South African tour of England was called off and replaced by a "Rest of the World" tour featuring several South African players. The International Cricket Conference (ICC) imposed a moratorium on tours in 1970. There were several private tours in the 1970s and "rebel"
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