OTD: South Africa played their first international match for 21 years in 1991

November 10, 1991, was the day when South Africa’s exile of 22 years from international cricket ended. The international sports community had banned South Africa from all sporting engagements, including cricket, due to the apartheid policy of South Africa’s white-majority government.

South Africa had played their last international cricket game in 1970, and then their players only managed to play in domestic cricket at home and in England and Australia. There were some rebel tours by England and international cricketers to South Africa arranged by their government in between.

Thanks to the efforts of Nelson Mandela and other influential leaders, South Africa eradicated this discrimination on the basis of skin color from their country, and the ICC gave them the green signal to begin integrating into international sports.

South Africa was cordially welcomed back into the cricket world by India. Before India’s planned journey to Australia, a three-match ODI series was hurriedly arranged, thanks in large part to the efforts of the late Jagmohan Dalmiya, the then-BCCI secretary.

The comeback game was set to take place in Kolkata’s City of Joy on November 10, 1991. Enthusiastic supporters lined the whole path from the airport to the team hotel in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), where the 41-year-old Clive Rice’s South African team was warmly welcomed.

South Africa marked their return to international cricket on November 10 with the first ODI against India on November 10, 1991. Clive Rice led the South African side, consisting of several debutants, and India captain Mohammed Azharuddin won the toss and chose to bowl first.

Kepler Wessels made 50 in 95 balls, and Adrian Kuiper got 43 as South Africa made 177/8 in 47 overs. Kapil Dev and Manoj Prabhakar took two wickets each and bowled brilliantly at the start to keep South Africa’s scoring in check.

In response, a young and fiery Allan Donald blew the Indian top order away in a brilliant spell of bowling that saw the Indian batters Ravi Shastri, Navjot Sidhu, and Sanjay Manjrekar all falling for single-digit scores, with Shastri making a duck.

Sachin Tendulkar made 62, and debutant Pravin Amre got 55 to revive the Indian innings and lead them to victory in 40.4 overs by three wickets. Donald starred with 5/29 on his ODI debut. Tendulkar and Donald were jointly given the Player of the Match award.

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