1929 — Tuppy Owen-Smith, resuming on 27, scores 129, but it doesn’t save South Africa from losing the third Test against England in Leeds by five wickets to slip to 0-1 in the five-match series.
1935 — Opener Bruce Mitchell scores 58 and wicketkeeper Jock Cameron 49 to guide South Africa safely to a draw on the final day of the third Test at Leeds, maintaining their 1-0 lead in the five-match series. Set 340 to win, the visitors were 194/5 at stumps.
1949 — The Springboks play their first Test since 1938, going up against New Zealand at Newlands. They were forced to pick 15 debutants, but they included several future legends, notably centre Tjol Lategan, winger Cecil Moss, flyhalf Hannes Brewis, prop Okey Geffin and No 8 Hennie Muller. The All Blacks scored the only try of the match, but Geffin nailed five penalties to seal a 15-11 victory.
1965 — Annette van Zyl beats Christine Truman of Britain 2-6 6-4 6-1 to win the Welsh lawn tennis title in Newport.
1966 — Sea Cottage, five weeks after being shot and with the bullet still inside him, charges from six lengths back with a furlong to go to win the R15,000 Winter Handicap at Clairwood by half a length — while carrying the top weight of 123 pounds and up to 25 pounds more than his biggest rivals. Racing pundits at the time described this as the greatest performance in the history of local racing, though they changed their minds a year later when Sea Cottage won the 1967 edition of the race, this time carrying 136 pounds to push his stakes earnings to what was then a record R103,097.50 with 18 wins from 22 races.
1972 — Pretoria Boys High School pupil Bernie Mitton, 17, beats his 26-year-old history teacher, Ricky Buwalda, 6-3 10-8 7-9 4-6 9-7 to win the Natal tennis championships at Westridge Park in Durban. Mitton was in std 9 at the time.
1978 — Bernie Mitton downs Australian John James 6-1 3-6 7-6 to win the Hall of Fame grass-court tournament in Newport. He beat top seed Arthur Ashe in the quarterfinals.
2014 — Dean Elgar scores 103 on the first day of the first Test against Sri Lanka in Galle.
2016 — Mzonke Fana is beaten on points in his bid for the WBO lightweight title by Terry Flanagan of England in Cardiff.
2017 — Ruswahl Samaai goes 8.35m to win the long jump at the Diamond League meet in Rabat, edging American Jarrion Lawson by 2cm.
2021 — Janneman Malan scores an unbeaten 177 and Quinton de Kock 120 as the Proteas amass 346/6 before bowling out Ireland for 276 to win the third and final ODI in Dublin by 70 runs and draw the series 1–1.
2021 — Njabulo Ngcobo, Yusuf Maart and Sepana Letsoalo score as Bafana Bafana beat Mozambique 3-0 in a Cosafa Cup semifinal at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
2023 — Akani Simbine wins the 100m at the Diamond League meet in Chorzow, Poland, crossing the line in 9.97 to hand American world champion Fred Kerley his first defeat in more than a year. Wayde van Niekerk was first in the 400m, clocking 44.08, his fastest time since injuring his right knee in 2017.
2023 — Bafana Bafana beat Malawi 5-3 on penalties to win the Cosafa Cup third-place play-off at King Zwelithini Stadium. The match had ended goalless.
2025 — Dewald Brewis top-scores with 35 in South Africa’s 21-run defeat to New Zealand in a tri-series T20 match in Harare. The Proteas were bowled out for 152.
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