Harlequins honoured Graeme Pollock
The Pretoria Harlequins club honoured the cricket legend Graeme Pollock at a special function last week.
Cricket experts often refer to the legendary cricket hero Graeme Pollock as the best cricketer ever produced by South Africa.
In his life he was widely honoured with top awards which included being voted South Africa’s cricketer of the 20th century in 1999.
It is generally accepted that in the mid-sixties of that century he was probably the world’s best batsman.
In 1966, he was named one of the cricketers of the year by the authoritative cricket publication, Wisden.
This same publication also named him one of the leading cricketers in the world for 1967 and 1969.
He was appointed twice as SA cricket player of the year (1961 and 1984). Only one other player in history could maintain a better average as a batsman in test cricket, the legendary Sir Donald Bradman of Australia.
Unfortunately, Pollock’s official test career ended at the age of 26 after only 23 test matches when South Africa was kicked out of international cricket due to the sporting boycott for political reasons.
This brief background on Pollock makes it clear why Harlequins club of Pretoria chose him as the sports legend this year to receive honorary membership from the tradition-rich club.
This award was presented at a special function hosted by Harlequins last week.
About 200 guests were present when Pollock and his wife were received in grandiose style by the club. In his speech Pollock shared his opinion on modern day cricket.
He made it clear that he was no great supporter of all the one-day and T20 cricket that was played these days.
He also believed that money, which is easy to make from all the T20 tournaments worldwide, was causing damage to test cricket at the moment.
“T20 cricket means great entertainment for the spectators and for the players it means a lot of money, but test cricket is a form of art,” said Pollock.
The guests were delighted with his stories about the national team with whom he started playing in 1963.
According to Pollock, the national team of 1970 was the best he had ever played with. Unfortunately they could only play in one series against Australia because of politics.
After that series, the era of isolation started and the players of his era never played official international cricket again.
Pollock was asked about his opinion on the so-called “mean machine” as the Transvaal team of the 1970s and early 1980s was called and of which he was part.
Pollock said the main reason for their success was that they were all great friends and that everyone in the team was of international standard.
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