The 1970 English cricket season was marked by controversy when a tour by South Africa was forced to be abandoned in view of mounting opposition to the apartheid policy maintained by that country's then government. The tour which was due to feature tests at Lord's, Trent Bridge, Edgbaston, Headingley and the Oval was officially cancelled by Home Secretary James Callaghan. Instead, England played a highly successful series of unofficial Tests against a Rest of the World XI which was captained by Gary Sobers and included some of the best South African players such as Graeme Pollock, Eddie Barlow, Mike Procter and Barry Richards. These matches were promoted as Tests at the time, but were not recognised as such by the International Cricket Conference. Alan Jones played for England only in this series, and had the unfortunate experience of thinking that he had played in Tests only subsequently to discover that he had not.
Kent won the County Championship title.