South Africa's cricketers needed 17 years to win a Test, then found the googly
South Africa's first eleven Tests produced ten defeats and a single draw, the worst start of any current Test nation. What turned things around was a quartet of spin bowlers who mastered the googly, a delivery that turns the opposite way to what batters expect, and in 1906 they finally beat England.
Cricket arrived with British troops; the first recorded match in the country was played in Cape Town in 1808 between two service teams for a prize of a thousand rix-dollars. In 1888 shipping magnate Sir Donald Currie sponsored an English touring side captained by C. Aubrey Smith, later a Hollywood actor, and the games played in 1889 were retrospectively ranked as South Africa's first Tests. Nobody involved realised they were playing international cricket at the time.
Reggie Schwarz learned the googly from its English inventor, Bernard Bosanquet, and taught it to Aubrey Faulkner, Bert Vogler and Gordon White. Against a second-string England side in 1906, South Africa won the first Test at Johannesburg by one wicket and took the series 4–1. Schwarz and Vogler soon became the first South Africans named Wisden Cricketers of the Year, and a first win in Australia followed at Adelaide in the 1910–11 tour.
By the 1960s the team was arguably the best in the world, but growing opposition to apartheid led the International Cricket Council to ban it from international play, in line with other sporting bodies. The exclusion lasted until 1991, and its end brought first-ever meetings with India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.
Since returning, the side has often topped the world rankings and wins more than 60 percent of its one-day internationals, though its first ICC limited-overs trophy did not come until the 1998 Champions Trophy. The team, nicknamed the Proteas after the national flower, won the 2023–2025 World Test Championship by beating Australia by five wickets in the final.
Source: South Africa national cricket team
