Thousands of black township schoolchildren eagerly awaited the arrival of their Caribbean heroes, who had dominated cricket during the darkest days of apartheid.

Many would be supporting Lara's team and the grounds were selling out. But a marathon tour of five Tests and seven one-day internationals soon dissolved into a sporting and public relations disaster.

The men from the Caribbean, so omnipotent in the 1980s, had declined as a cricketing force since then.

But with players of the calibre of Lara, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose, they were no pushovers.

However a row between the tour party and the West Indies Cricket Board over pay and security threatened the tour before it had started.

Nelson Mandela was forced to intervene after Lara and vice-captain Carl Hooper were sacked by the West Indies Cricket Board.

But to the fury of South Africans, his appeals seemed to fall on deaf ears. "West Indies show contempt for Mandela" was hardly the sort of headline the tour was meant to generate.

Finally Lara was re-instated and West Indies tried to repair the damage by playing a match against black cricketers in Soweto.

But WICB president Pat Rousseau and his wife were later mugged at gunpoint.

Another row blew up over the selection of an all-white South African side for the first Test, won by the home side within four days.

The tourists tumbled from defeat to defeat and Sports Minister Steve Tshwete declared he would not support South Africa in the fourth Test after Paul Adams was again snubbed.

Ottis Gibson, who had been playing provincial cricket in South Africa, was summoned into the Newlands Test with Walsh and Franklyn Rose both injured.

He remembers the players doing their best to be professional against all the odds.

"The team was losing quite heavily but the lads were trying to stay positive," he recalls.

"The trouble is once you start losing it's contagious so morale was probably low.

"South Africa were a very good side at that stage. They had Allan Donald in his prime and Hansie Cronje was still captain.

"The West Indies had just come from the ICC Knockout tournament in Bangladesh and went straight to South Africa.

"It's well documented what happened before the tour started and then they got off to a poor start.

"If you have another eight weeks of touring you have to snap out of it quickly and if that doesn't happen it's always going to be a struggle."

The opposition were in no mood to dish out favours, either.

"South Africa were quite ruthless and Hansie just wanted to keep the momentum going from the first Test onwards."

Ultimately, the West Indies were whitewashed 5-0 in the Tests and the crowds dwindled for the one-day series, won 6-1 by the home side.

The West Indies left to the words "betrayed", "con-artists" and "clowns" written in the press.