AFTER being taken back in the international fold nearly a quarter of a century ago, that is in 1991, South Africa one of the three founder members of the ICC along with England and Australia has now come along way up to be taken as a cricketing force once again.

Their isolation from the game from 1970 onwards to the period they were readmitted they have had a tough time trying to keep the game going at domestic level, hosting rebel teams and a well orchestrated campaign to bring back their country back in sports after being barred from international cricket for their inhuman laws of ‘apartheid’ which promoted segregation and racial discrimination.

Fifty years of National Party rule of the country and apartheid had made them the outcasts of cricket and the rest. But that all changed when their most famous prisoner and a revolutionary freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was freed from 27 years imprisonment for sedition and struggle to free the black majority from a white minority rule to later become the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

His freedom opened the gate for his country and for his sportsmen to be accepted internationally as apartheid laws were abolished.

South Africa in apartheid days did not play against any non-white team at any level of cricket nor allowed any mixed race cricket at home. It was an offence.

They have now come up a long way away from those dark days to be reckoned once again a force in the game at all level to even achieve top ranking in the game for a while. Theirs have been an interesting journey and besides the likes of Allan Donald, Gary Kirsten, Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Shaun Pollock, Hansie Cronje, the Morkels, Dale Steyn, Jonty Rhodes, they have come out with great names amongst the non-white players like Makhaya Ntini, Hashim Amla, Duminy, Rabada, Herschelle Gibbs Vernon Philander and Imran Tahir during the post apartheid period.

A.B. de Villiers and Faf du Plessis, Quinton de Kock, J.P. Duminy, Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander, Amla of today present a potent proposition to any opposition.

De Villiers is not in tour but Du Plessis, is as captain but had to go back home to attend the birth of his child and a new captain will be leading his charges in the first Test starting at Lord’s for the first time and may be the only time in this series in a Test and that is Dean Elgar, a batsman of 36-Test experience who promises to deliver.

Which no doubt will be interesting because the opposite number Joe Root too will be in charge of England team for the first time in a Test and with his grandfather and parents present in the crowd at Lord’s today he will no doubt have a job at hand to have a good start to the series to impress his credentials as a captain in the first of the four Tests.

Come what may South Africa labeled as the chokers of the game at limited over level surely will not be throwing in the towel away without a fight. Conditions here favour the English but even England can be beaten at home and that is what will keep this South African side going to remain in the contest for the next four weeks.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2017