Cricket in South Africa

Cricket is the third most popular sports in South Africa, after soccer and rugby. It was established by the British. In 1888-1889, South African side played its first test matches against the visiting English team and became the third cricket Test nation. In 1909, the Imperial Cricket Conference (ICC - now the International Cricket Council) was set up, with England, Australia and South Africa as the original members.

In 1970, at the height of its performance, the South African cricket team found itself suspend indefinitely by the International Cricket Council because of the South African government's racist policy of apartheid, which allowed the national team to have only white players and to play only against white nations (England, Australia and New Zealand). 

The isolation ended in 1991, when the team played its first post-sanctions international match against India. With re-admittance into the international cricket came the change of the name, from the Springboks into the Proteas. For while, the team was required to contain black players in order to meet a racial quota policy. That policy was abandoned in 2007.

Soon after being re-admitted into the international scene, the Proteas became one of the elite teams of world cricket, reaching the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup in 1992 and 1999. Then, in 2000, South Africa's cricket was shaken by a match-fixing scandal, when the national team’s captain was banned from cricket for life after receiving bribes from bookmakers.

South Africa became the world's No. 1 ranked side early in 2007, but again failed to win the 2007 Cricket World Cup, making it only to the finals. South African team is regarded by many as the best team never to have won the Cricket World Cup.

The main cricket fields of South Africa are:

• Newlands, Cape Town
• St George's Park, Port Elizabeth
• Wanderers, Johannesburg
• Centurion, Pretoria
• Kingspark, Durban
• Springbokpark, Bloemfontein

Also see:

Cricket South Africa

International Cricket Council

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