16 Facts about Ali Bacher: The Rebellious Godfather

Most of the world looked at Ali Bacher as a villain for most of the 1980s. You couldn’t blame them, especially given the fact that he was the mastermind behind the infamous ‘Rebel tours’. However, dissecting his life into bits and pieces shows another persona. A man who was driven by sport and a magnificent cricketer, perhaps even one of the best of his era. On his 74th  birthday, we take a look at a few facts about Ali Bacher: The Rebellious Godfather of South African cricket.

1. Birth:

Aron ‘Ali’ Bacher was born on the 24th of May 1942 in Johannesburg, Transvaal Province in South Africa.

2. Ethnicity and Name:

He was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents who emigrated to South Africa. He got his nickname “Ali” at the age of seven from Ali Baba. His nephew Adam Bacher played for South Africa in the 1990s.

3. Playing career:

Bacher played 12 Test matches for South Africa. Despite being a top-class player as well as the captain of the South African team, Bacher’s cricket playing career was cut short by apartheid restrictions, thereby isolating South Africa from the sport for 22 years. Bacher was 28 years old when the racial restrictions were imposed on the Proteas.

4. Batting style:

As Steven Lynch wrote: “As a player Bacher was a scrapper, at his best turning to leg off the back foot, and he was a fabulous fielder.”

5. Brushing shoulders with the greats:

Having been made skipper in 1969, Bacher was leading perhaps one of the best South African sides of all time. During his career with the Proteas, Bacher boasted of playing alongside the likes of Mike Procter, Barry Richards, and Graeme Pollock.

6. Thrashing the Australians:

Bacher was the skipper of South Africa when an Australian side led by Bill Lawry made their way out to play a 4-match Test series in South Africa. While Lawry and Ian Chappel and others maintain that the Aussies were in no condition to play following their frightful tour of India, Bacher’s Proteas whitewashed them 4-0. Graeme Pollock slammed 517 runs in the series while Mike Procter took 26 wickets in the series. This also led to the ousting of Bill Lawry as skipper of Australia.

7. Apartheid South Africa:

Ali Bacher was made a cricket administrator of the South African cricket team during the years of Apartheid, something that has attributed to his fame. The sporting ban for the Proteas lasted for almost 22 years with Bacher doing a tremendous job by looking after the Afrikan players during the boycott.

8. Rebel tours:

The ‘Rebel tours’ concept was the brainchild of Ali Bacher. Although he did it out of love for cricket and to preserve the game of cricket in the country, Bacher organized a bevy of rebel tours. These were unofficial tours organized that led to severe sanctions imposed on the players who toured the country at the time of Apartheid. Australia, England, Sri Lanka and the West Indies were the prominent teams that toured the country at the time. The most severe restrictions, however, were imposed on the Sri Lankans and the West Indies players.

All the Lankan players who toured the country were banned for 25 years while those who toured from the West Indies were banned for life.

9. Cricket South Africa’s piggy bank:

Bacher realized that the only way to attract players to the country to play international sports was through large cash incentives. He was the authorized signatory for the board’s chequebook. Some of the players who claimed large cash incentives were players such as Lawrence Rowe, Collis King, Colin Croft (West Indies), Mike Gatting (England), Terry Alderman, and Kim Hughes (Australia).

10. Medicine and family business:

In 1979, Bacher was a certified General Physician. However, he left his position to continue the family business.

11. Bypass surgery:

In 1981, he had heart bypass surgery, then took up the job of leading Transvaal’s newly professionalized cricket administration.

12. Sports Merit award:

He was awarded South Africa’s Sports Merit Award (its top athletics honor) in 1972.

13. Post-Apartheid involvement:

The collapse of Apartheid in 1991 saw the England’s Rebel tour under Mike Gatting turn into something of a disaster. However, Bacher stayed on as the director of the cricket board, helping South Africa return to their superior power as a cricketing force. He was instrumental in ensuring that the Proteas were once again part of the ICC’s agenda and also saw to it that they took part in the 1992 edition of the World Cup in Australia. He also instigated the video review system in 1992.

14. 2003 World Cup:

He was the director of planning when South Africa hosted their first ever ICC Cricket World Cup in 2003.

15. ‘No idea how people felt’:

Although Bacher has been viewed as an enemy for a long time, he has apologized for his actions and involvement in the Rebel tours in the 1980s. In a documentary involving cricket in the 80s, Bacher declared that his ideas for these tours were wrong, tendering a profound apology. However, he also added that he did these activities not understanding or realizing the way people felt about the concept at the time

16. The Australian dressing room:

South Africa’s return to the international cricketing arena was consummated by their participation in the 1992 Cricket world cup. However, nothing felt sweeter than the fact that they beat the Australians in the round robin stages of the tournament.

In a recent interview, Bacher was quoted saying: “At the 1992 World Cup, after we’d won our first game against Australia, I remember going into the Australian dressing room and speaking to Allan Border. I told Border that it was destined, somewhere up there, that South Africa would win this game. I didn’t get much of a reply. Australia wasn’t in a jovial mood. They had just got clobbered.”