Born and raised in South Africa, Kieswetter moved to England to complete his education, and began playing county cricket for Somerset in 2007.

Kieswetter played junior cricket for Western Province until the age of 18, but lack of opportunity led him to seek an alternative route in England.

Kieswetter's career was cut short by an injury sustained while batting for Somerset in July 2014: a ball penetrated the gap between his helmet's grille and visor and struck him in the face, damaging his vision.

[2][4] At the 2006 Under-19s World Cup in Sri Lanka, he represented South Africa and won a Man of the Match award in a game against the United States for his innings of 80 off 66 balls.

[5] Kieswetter made his first appearance for Somerset's second team in May 2006, taking over from Sam Spurway as wicket-keeper midway through a match when the latter was injured.

[8] His performances were so strong that Somerset chose to release Spurway at the start of the 2007 season, and named Kieswetter alongside Carl Gazzard as their two wicket-keepers.

[23] In January 2010, he was named as part of the England Lions squad to tour the United Arab Emirates for a series against Pakistan A.

[25] During that match, which was played on the day that he qualified for England, Kieswetter scored 81 runs to help the Lions beat the senior team.

[27] He was immediately included in the team, playing as a specialist batsman alongside wicket-keeper Matt Prior, in the first warm-up match on 23 February against the Bangladesh Cricket Board XI.

[33] In contrast to the "hard-hitting batting" which Geoff Miller, the England selector, had cited as one of the reasons for his inclusion,[27] Kieswetter's century was patiently built after a nervous start.

[35] Kieswetter opened the innings with Michael Lumb throughout the tournament, and ESPNcricinfo's Andrew McGlashan identified their performances as one of the reasons that England reached the final.

[44] Another century, in the County Championship prompted Jeremy James of ESPNcricinfo to ask "whether Craig Kieswetter will regain his place in England's one-day side before Jos Buttler assumes it ahead of him".

[45] His form earned him a recall to England's one-day squads for the series against Sri Lanka, Geoff Miller saying "[Kieswetter] will offer some real fire power with the bat along with his ability with the gloves".

[48] A week later, playing for Somerset against Nottinghamshire, he scored 164 runs, the highest innings of his first-class career, as part of a 290-run partnership with James Hildreth.

[58] In early 2012, playing against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates, Kieswetter batted only twice in the ODI series, and was praised for his 43-run contribution in the fourth match, though George Dobell of ESPNcricinfo identified his wicket-keeping as "still not as polished as he would like".

In contrast to the 2010 World Twenty20, when the England players were told to attack bat selflessly,[60] in 2012 the team was instructed to avoid losing early wickets, and Kieswetter struggled to adapt his game to score low-risk singles and rotate the strike.

[1] Despite his struggles in international cricket, Kieswetter had a successful season with Somerset in 2012; he scored 848 first-class runs at an average of just over 60, including a century against Warwickshire and one for the Lions against Australia A.

[62][63] The following year, he retained his place in the ODI team for the tour of India, although ESPNcricinfo's Alex Winter suggested that it might be due to "England's desire to protect the workload of their players ahead of back-to-back Ashes series.

[79] He was called up as a late replacement for the injured Luke Wright for England's squad in the 2014 ICC World Twenty20, but was not selected to play.

[19] On 12 July 2014, Kieswetter suffered a broken nose and fractured cheek bone while batting for Somerset against Northamptonshire in a County Championship match.

He returned to the Somerset side before the end of the 2014 season and scored a half-century in his first match back, against Middlesex, though he admitted that his vision was still not fully recovered.

[82] Kieswetter signed for the South African franchise Warriors as their overseas player to play in the Ram Slam T20 Challenge for the 2014–15 season.

[84] On 10 December 2014, despite having been named in England's 30-man provisional 2015 Cricket World Cup squad, Kieswetter revealed that he was still suffering vision problems.

[86] Although rare, the injury to Kieswetter was followed by another high-profile case, when Phillip Hughes died after being struck on the head by a cricket ball while batting.

[91] Kieswetter's confident and attacking batting style was compared to that of Kevin Pietersen, another England batsman of South African origin.

[15] Although Kieswetter favoured the off-side,[92] he was also strong behind square on both sides, and stood with a typical South African stance, his bat held high.

He began as a middle-order batsman, but by the end of the 2007 season, although he remained in the middle-order in first-class cricket, Kieswetter regularly found himself opening the batting alongside Marcus Trescothick in one-day cricket, a role he would also take up in opening six matches of the 2009 Twenty20 Cup, although he later dropped back into the middle order to improve the balance of the side.

[101] In early 2017, he turned professional and in March played in the MENA Golf Tour qualifying school in Morocco, finishing tied for 31st place and earning a card for the 2017 season.

[102] He played regularly on the Tour during 2017 and in September won his biggest prize of the season, winning US$360 in the Dubai Creek Open after finishing tied for 38th place.