Our summer series on South Africa's controversial cricket history
Friday 4 August 2017 17:01, UK
New for the summer of 2017, from Sky Sports Cricket's Charles Colvile, our four-part documentary series tells the story of South African Cricket.
From its years of isolation during the apartheid era, through it's dramatic return to the world stage and how, under record-breaking captain Graeme Smith, South Africa rose the top of the ICC's Test rankings not once but twice - all against the back drop of the country's constant struggle to come to terms with it's controversial and often violent past.
The series finishes with an assessment of where cricket and South Africa is today, and what part the game can and should continue to play in the development of Nelson Mandela's Rainbow Nation.
Watch Episode Four - 'Old Sins' - in the video at the top of the page...
It is 25 years since South Africa burst back onto the international stage at the 1992 World Cup only to be knocked out in the semi finals by rain. More importantly perhaps, it is also 25 years since the end of apartheid.
In this the final episode of "Cricket and the Rainbow Nation', Colvile returns to South Africa to see what progress cricket, and the country as a whole, has made in leaving the troubles of the past behind.
Is the apartheid era now just an entry in the history books for modern South Africans, and why do some still think they are better off seeking fame and fortune elsewhere? Colvile tries to provide answers.
Watch Episode Three - 'The Rise to the Top' - by clicking here...
In 2003, in the wake of South Africa's soggy exit from that year's World Cup, the country's cricket selectors appeared to have taken a huge gamble by appointing 22-year-old Graeme Smith as the captain.
However 12 years and 108 Test matches later, Smith would retire as arguably cricket's greatest leader having taken his country to the top of the world Test rankings twice.
Episode 3 of "Cricket and The Rainbow Nation - The rise to the Top" is the story of that heady journey through the eyes, and in the words of those, who made it, including the inside story of South Africa's tour of England in 2012 which saw them crowned as Test Cricket's best as England fell apart in the wake of the KP Textgate Affair.
Watch Episode Two - 'Back in the Big Time' - by clicking here...
When in the spring of 1991 Nelson Mandela was released from goal it wasn't just the first President of the modern South Africa who regained his freedom.
The fight against apartheid had seen South African sport banned from taking part in international competitions for over 20 years, with cricket particularly badly affected.
In Episode Two of "Cricket and The Rainbow Nation -Back in the Big Time" we relieve the events which saw South Africa take it s first faltering steps back into international cricket, only to have it's fragile confidence dashed by the Hansie Cronje Betting Scandal.
We tell of triumphs and rain affected World Cup disasters and how in 2003 the selectors turned to an untried 22 year old to build a side that could become the worlds best Test team.
Watch Episode One - 'Isolation' - by clicking here...
When Cape Town-born Basil D'Oliveira was banned from touring South Africa with England in 1968/9 because of the colour of his skin, one of Test cricket's proudest countries was plunged into a 21-year period of isolation from the international sporting stage as the world united in the battle against the apartheid regime of the South Africa's Nationalist Government.
In episode one of "Cricket and the Rainbow Nation", we tell the story of that fight, the effect it had on the country and the players, both black and white, who were caught up in it and how the South African Cricket authorities tried to beat the sporting blockade by recruiting Rebel Tours.
With interviews with many of the key players of the time "Isolation" is a powerful and often moving story that recaptures a dark and turbulent time in South Africa's past all through the eyes of the game of cricket.
