1896 — Slow left-arm bowler George Rowe finishes with five wickets as South Africa bowl out England for 482 in the second Test at Old Wanderers.
1910 — Bert Vogler takes four wickets for a match haul of eight, but England reach the 221-run target to win the third Test at Old Wanderers by three wickets to reduce their deficit in the five-match series to 1-2.
1914 — South Africa are bowled out for 228, with captain Herbie Taylor top-scoring on 87 and only two other batsmen making double figures, leaving England needing just 11 runs to win the fifth and final Test at St George’s Park, which they did without losing a wicket to take the series 4-0.
1936 — Bruce Mitchell makes an unbeaten 72 as South Africa are bowled out by Australia for 227 to lose the fifth and final Test at Kingsmead by an innings and six runs and the series 0-4.
1939 — Opener Pieter van der Bijl scores an unbeaten 105 on the first day of the fifth Test against England at Kingsmead. He added 20 more runs the following day of the famous “timeless” Test.
1964 — David Pithey takes 6/58 as South Africa bowl out New Zealand for 138 in the rain-hit second Test in Dunedin, leaving the visitors to score 65 runs in 27 minutes to win. They opened with Colin Bland, who made an unbeaten 16, but they got to 42/3 to draw the four-day game, leaving the series level at 0-0.
1985 — Snooker star Silvino Francisco, a 50-1 outsider with a world ranking of 17, wins the British Open Championship in Derby, beating Kirk Stevens of Canada 12-9 in the final, pocketing what was then a world record purse of 50,000 pounds, which translated into R107,000 at the time. Francisco, 38 at the time, was only the second man to be ranked outside the top 16 to win a major snooker crown. Francisco, who had relocated from Cape Town to England a few years earlier, learnt to play the game at the club owned by his father Manuel, a fisherman who had immigrated from Portugal. There were two tables in the back where he would play each day after school. In 1997 Francisco was nabbed in Dover trying to smuggle 50kg of dagga in his sports car from Spain and was imprisoned for three years.
1990 — Capetonian Eric Melville, who made his first-team debut as a lock for the Villagers club in 1982, becomes the first naturalised Frenchman from South Africa to play rugby for France. He came on from the bench to play flank during France’s 31-12 victory over Ireland at Parc des Princes. He earned a total of six caps, two of them as eighthman. Melville’s regular teammates during his tenure at Villagers included Springboks like eighthman Nick Mallett, scrumhalf Roy McCallum and prop Attie Strauss, as well as Springbok trialist Bossie Clarke.
1999 — The first Test between South Africa and New Zealand in Auckland ends in a draw with the hosts 244/3 in their follow-on innings, still trailing by 25 runs.
2003 — The Proteas are eliminated from the World Cup on home soil after tying their must-win match against Sri Lanka in Durban. Batting first, the visitors made 268/9 with opener Marvan Atapattu making 124 from 129 balls and veteran Aravinda de Silva 73 from 78 deliveries. The target was revised to 230 from 45 overs because of rain. Needing one run off the final ball, bowled by Muttiah Muralitharan, Mark Boucher and Lance Klusener didn’t even attempt to run the single, and so the hosts ended on 229/6. That was the first World Cup in four starts where South Africa failed to reach the knockout stage.
2006 — Makhaya Ntini takes 6/22 as the Proteas bowl out Australia for 93 to win the second ODI at Newlands by 196 runs for a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
2008 — Robin Peterson takes 5/33 as South Africa bowl out Bangladesh for 119 to win the second and final Test in Chattogram by an innings and 205 runs to take the series 2-0.
2010 — Bafana Bafana disappoint their fans as they’re held to a 1-1 draw by lowly Namibia in a friendly at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban. South Africa, preparing to host the World Cup a few months later, found themselves a goal down after Maritzburg United player Rudolf Bester netted just before halftime. Katlego Mphela equalised in the 70th minute to ensure that Bafana, 81 in the world rankings at the time, didn’t lose to a side ranked 109th.
2011 — AB de Villiers hammers 134 off 98 balls and Hashim Amla 113 as the Proteas total 351/5, beating the Netherlands by 231 runs in their World Cup group match in Mohali.
2012 — Hashim Amla scores 76 to steer the Proteas to a five-wicket victory over New Zealand in the third and final ODI in Auckland for a 3-0 series triumph. Marchant de Lange took 446 as South Africa bowled the Kiwis out for 206.
2013 — Only three batsmen reach double figures as the Proteas, needing 196, lose the decisive second T20 against Pakistan at Centurion by 95 runs. Four were out for ducks. The first match was rained out.
2015 — Hashim Amla scores 159 off 128 balls and Faf du Plessis 109 as the Proteas total 411/4 before bowling out Ireland for 210 to win their World Cup pool match in Canberra by 201 runs. Kyle Abbott took 4/21.
2019 — Skipper Faf du Plessis scores an unbeaten 112 runs and Quinton de Kock 81 as the Proteas beat Sri Lanka by eight wickets in the opening ODI against Sri Lanka at the Wanderers. Lungi Ngidi and Imran Tahir took three wickets each as South Africa bowled out the visitors for 231.
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