Dubai: The historical significance of my assignment to meet the head honchos of the then United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCBSA) at the Dum Dum airport in Kolkata, way back in 1991, had not fully sunk in for the rookie reporter that was me. It did a few days later when Allan Donald, known as the ‘White Lightning,’ marked his run-up in front of a packed Eden Gardens crowd.

The One-Day International between India and South Africa was ushering in the resumption of South Africa’s cricketing ties with the world — one of the first sporting disciplines to find it’s feet back to the mainstream after decades of apartheid in the rainbow nation. Those were early days of hope and freedom as Nelson Mandela was released from jail only the previous year, and he was quick to seize sport as a tool for social change.

“Sport can create hope, where there once was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers,” Mandela had famously said. As the winds of change started sweeping through the country, the powerful and passionate sporting nation as they are, South Africa began to make its presence felt across various sporting disciplines.

The image of Mohammad Azharuddin and Clive Rice, rival captains shaking hands at the Eden Gardens was one of the iconic pictures of the country’s rehabilitation, but their best moment was yet to be in less than four years’ time. The sight of Mandela the South African President holding the Rugby World Cup trophy aloft with team captain Francois Pienaar — in front of a 65,000-strong crowd at Ellis Park in Johannesburg — was a definitive moment of sport’s abilities to “break down the racial barriers.”

The three decades of sporting isolation for South Africa was not free of moments of intrigue and opportunism. Dr Ali Bacher, the Managing Director of UCBSA (now simply called Cricket South Africa), who is rightly credited for paving the way for cricket ending it’s isolation quickly by winning India’s vote at the International Cricket Council (ICC), was also the architect behind the notorious Rebel tours in the Eighties.

At a time when South Africa was out of bounds for all international sports bodies, Dr Bacher went on to woo several top cricketers from England, Australia, the West Indies and even Sri Lanka with money power and tour them to play the national teams between 1982 and ’90.

The romanticism of the early Nineties have, of course, given way to the stark reality where ‘reservation’ often rules over eligibility in the sporting system. Last April, the South African government ruled that four sports disciplines — cricket, rugby, athletics and netball cannot bid to host any major international event for at least one year for failing to induct enough coloured players in the respective national teams.