CRICKET NEWS - Sport and Recreation South Africa (SRSA), Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the Nelson Mandela Foundation will launch the Nelson Mandela Centenary Celebrations at the upcoming international T20 double-header, featuring the South African women’s and the South Africa men’s cricket teams playing against their Indian counterparts.
The Centenary Celebration programme aims to honour the values and legacy of former president Nelson Mandela. The double-header will be played at the Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on 18 February 2018. The matches will also serve as a celebration of 20 years of diplomatic relations between India and South Africa.
Adding further significance, the Nelson Mandela Centenary Celebrations, coincide with the 125th anniversary of when Mahatma Gandhi was thrown off a train at the Pietmaritzburg Railway Station after he refused to move from a 'whites only' compartment.
In this 100th-year celebration of the values and legacy in sport left by Nelson Mandela, the hosting of India during the country's 125th anniversary serves as a poignant reminder of Mandela’s values, depicted through the unwavering style of leadership which has led many to regard him as a modern Gandhi. Attesting to this style of leadership, when Mandela was conferred with The International Gandhi Peace Prize in 1991, former president Shri KR Narayanan of India once stated, "We are paying tribute to an unusual hero in the Gandhian mould, who personifies the triumph of the human spirit over forces of oppression."
India was the first country to introduce sanctions against the apartheid regime. It was also the first team to tour South Africa in 1992, after South Africa was re-admitted into international cricket after the end of the apartheid era.
