Ali Bacher has been described at the best-known cricket official in the world and, as such, has attracted as much admiration as opprobrium. He is considered to be the most influential personality in the history of South African cricket. It is a story that is told with pace and is not short on colour. It includes the views of people most relevant to the issues being covered, by way of example: those ANC officials who viewed Ali Bacher as an enemy, agreed to engage him in clandestine meetings and then embraced him as a comrade; insiders in and around SA cricket who have dealt with him on subjects ranging from the masterminding of Rebel cricket tours in the 1980s to dealing with the Match Fixing scandal of the 1990s; and what went into organising the biggest Cricket World Cup of all in South Africa in Feb-March 2003. It is a story that covers his more than four decades in the forefront of SA cricket, including the most remarkable years in the history of South Africa. It will draw on this historical detail but will strongly project as a story of modern-day cricket challenges. It is, very often, a story of one man's incredible and sometimes lonely commitment to shape the game he loves.
