India vs S Africa: Celebrating history!

NEW DELHI: MS Dhoni’s Team India has flown all the way to South Africa to play just one T20 game in Johannesburg on Friday. The reason is steeped in history: the 150th anniversary of Indians landing in South Africa.

The only problem is that the celebration seems to be taking place two years past its designated time.

In 1860, the first two ships carrying Indian indentured labour from Madras and Calcutta reached South African shores in what is today known as the KwaZulu Natal province. Which makes 2010 as the 150th year of their arrival. That’s the dominant view there although another school of thought believes the first Indians actually came in 1849.

In fact, in 2010, an Indian-South African by the name of Ray Bisnath even launched a limited edition of gold medallions to mark 150 years of Indians coming to South Africa.

The medallions featured an engraving of the ships Truro and Belvedere, which are today of historical importance to Indians there. The event was widely written about and discussed in South Africa in 2010.

Hindi film actors Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Shahid Kapur had performed in Durban in Jan 2011 to commemorate the same event. A T20 international had been played between the two countries then on Jan 9 which India had won by 21 runs.

Cricket South Africa executive consultant Michael Owen-Smith says that Friday’s match is only an extension of the earlier celebrations. And that we might even see more of them in the future.

“We have decided to make it an annual event. The T20 matches may happen one year in India and the other in South Africa. We are looking at something like that,” he told TOI over the phone from South Africa.

The announcement of the match was made as recently as March 5. It was one of the last decisions taken by Gerald Majola before he was suspended as CSA chief executive following a judicial report on undeclared bonuses paid to him.