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South Africa have always been one of the toughest teams in world cricket to beat. Boasting of having some of the best players in the country playing the game on the international stage, South Africa have been successful in producing some great servants of the game.

But what many followers of the game don’t know yet is that South Africa was once banned from playing international cricket for a whopping 21 years. The country had been struggling and fighting the apartheid malpractice, which started in 1948. 

People were openly segregated based on their skin-colour and the situation throughout the country was pretty worse. South Africa began to be isolated as a sporting nation from 1950, and in 1970, the nation was officially banned from participating in any international cricket event or even inviting other nations from participating with them.

The nation had to wait for 21 long years, after Nelson Mandela was released from prison, to be able to enjoy sporting recognition yet again. Let’s refer to the time when on February 26 in 1992, South Africa played their first World Cup game after their return to international cricket. They were outstanding on their return. They humbled Australia in Sydney by a mammoth nine-wicket margin.

South Africa’s coach back in 1992, Mike Procter once mentioned how initially, the South African team thought it would never play the World Cup that year at all, because of such a long-time gap and with the cricket fraternity having to re-tune itself to welcome them back again. But with learning the good news of them playing, Procter felt as if “Father Christmas arrived ten times on the same day.”

South Africa’s 1992 campaign was remembered not only because of their comeback after a long time, but because of their outstanding outing throughout the World Cup, and the famous semi-final heartbreak which is a talking point even to this day.

South Africa had won five group stage matches to storm into the semi-finals of the World Cup. They had to play England in the clash. At one point, South Africa were in control of the game to claim a finals berth, and everyone knew it would be a cakewalk for the Proteas.

But rain interrupted the proceedings, and the players were called back to resume the game after a ten-minute break. This was the turning point of the game, as the required score line read South Africa needed 22 runs on 1 ball. Thus, South Africa’s epic return to the World Cup also had an equally epic finish.