South Africa, after being re-inducted into international cricket, played its first One Day series against India in India.
1991 - 92 season
India won the series 2 -1. It was more about the inexperienced proteas team rather than a strong Indian performance.
A season later, India went on its first full tour to South Africa comprising of 7 ODIs and a full test series.
Mohd. Azharuddin was the Indian skipper, while Proteas were led by Kepler Wessels, who had also represented Australia early in his career.
The pacy and bouncy SouthAfrican pitches were a mystery for Indian batsmen as Indians were reduced to totals of 140 and 180 odd in the first two games after winning the toss. South Arica took an early 2 -0 lead.
The third game, Azhar won the toss and opted to field first and rightly so. India chased down South Africas total courtesy a fine 113 by W V Raman. South Africa won the next 3 games and India managed to restore some pride by winning the last game courtesy Pravin Amre. South Africa won 5-2. India lost the test series as well 1-0
India again toured SA in the 1996 -97 season. This time they had the wall. India lost this time as well but there some amazing stellar performances as well. Sachins 169 , Azhar scored a ton as well, so did Dravid. Kumble was the leading wicket taker.
In between, there came the Motera test. It was South African tour to India. Sachin Tendulkar was the skipper. South Africa were given a modest target to chase and they were well prepared to play spin. But Sachin and A certain Javagal Srinath had some other plans. Srinath gave a career best haul to help India win the game which was almost lost.
Then came arrival of Sehwag in the test team. He signalled his arrival with a bang. A century at Blomfomtein. The same series witnessed the Mark Dennes controversy. And one test was given an unofficial status.
Though South Africans most of the times dominated India in the longer format of the game, India had reasonably good success against them in the limited overs game. One might never forget the last over in the hero cup semi final bowled by Sachin against a hard hitting Brian McMillan. Even the best of the bowlers could not have defended 4 runs required of the last over. India beat them again in the Titan cup.
India have pulled off some games from the jaws of defeat. While most of the games have seen a complete South African domination. South Africa and Australia were the only teams having beaten India in a test series in India for almost 2 decades, until the Brits beat India a couple of seasons ago with Panesar and Swann as wrecker in chief.
I am not putting the numbers and scores here. Thats all available on so many search engines and cricket sites. My purpose of writting this page is just reminding the incredible matches played between the two top cricketing nations and also to acknowledge the top performers for the both sides against each other.
With a long full series coming up in Oct 2015. Its only apt to recollect those names who made cricket matches interesting between the two sides.
For India
Sachin Tendulkar, Dravid, Azharuddin, Kumble, Ganguly, Sehwag, Sreesanth (yes you got it right.he won India a rare test match on SA soil), Laxman, Zaheer, Javagal Srinath, Harbhajan Singh.
For South Africa
Allan Donald, Gary Kirsten, Shaun Pollock, Jonty Rhodes, McMillan, Lance Klusener, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Pat Symcox, Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Kepler Wessels.
Hope we get to witness another great series and India triumph under the leadership of Kohli and mentorship of Ravi Shashtri.
ciao.
