The ban remained in place until 1991, after which South Africa played against India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the West Indies for the first time.

It was founded as a victualling station for the Dutch East Indies trade route but soon acquired an importance of its own due to its good farmland and mineral wealth.

The first-ever recorded cricket match in South Africa took place in 1808, in Cape Town between two service teams for a prize of one thousand rix-dollars.

By the late 1840s, the game had spread from its early roots in Cape Colony and permeated the Afrikaners in the territories of Orange Free State and Transvaal, who were descendants of the original Dutch settlers and were not considered naturally a cricket-playing people.

The team was captained by C. Aubrey Smith, a decent medium pacer from Sussex, and for two of the Major Warton's XI, Basil Grieve and The Honourable Charles Coventry, the two Tests constituted their entire first-class career.

[14] However, Albert Rose-Innes did make history by becoming the first South African bowler to take a five-wicket haul in Tests at Port Elizabeth.

In the early 1900s, the first world-class South African cricket team emerged, comprising stars such Bonnor Middleton, Jimmy Sinclair, Charlie Llewellyn, Dave Nourse, Louis Tancred, Aubrey Faulkner, Reggie Schwarz, Percy Sherwell, Tip Snooke, Bert Vogler, and Gordon White, players who were capable of giving any international teams a run for their money.

In addition to possessing batsmen such as Sinclair (the batsman with the highest strike rate in Test history), Nourse, Tancred, all-rounder Faulkner, Sherwell, Snooker, and White, the South Africans developed the world's first (and arguably greatest) spin attack which specialised in googly.

He taught diligently the secrets of the googly to allrounder Faulkner, medium-pacer Vogler, and specialist batsman White, and together the four formed a quartet which began to lead South Africa to unprecedented heights in Test cricket.

[19] The Australian cricket team toured South Africa in 1902, with an extremely strong squad comprising many prominent members of 'The Golden Age of Australian Cricket' such as Victor Trumper, Joe Darling, Clem Hill, Syd Gregory, Monty Noble, Reggie Duff, Warwick Armstrong, Hugh Trumble, and Ernie Jones.

Though South Africa lost the 3-match Test series 2–0, they avoided defeat for the first time by drawing the first game at Johannesburg, even forcing the touring side to follow on thanks to some outstanding all-round performances from Llewellyn.

[15] In 1904, South Africa was invited by the Marylebone Cricket Club for a tour of England to play a series of first-class matches, the team not being regarded as sufficiently high standard to play-official Tests.

The side won ten out of their twenty-two matches, including a thrilling tie with Middlesex, who finished among the top four in that year's County Championship, due to some magic weaved by Schwarz through his googlies.

However, in a shocking result at Johannesburg, the inspired South Africans, led by Sherwell and their googly quartet, defeated England by 1 wicket, thereby recording her first Test win.

South Africa finished bottom with just one draw, but the series was notable for the debut of Herbie Taylor, regarded as one of the finest batsmen of the era.

The tournament also marked the peak of the short, but moderately successful test career of medium-pacer Sid Pegler, whose rise, coinciding as it did with the decline of Schwarz and Vogler, briefly caused him to hold the mantle of the lead bowler of the South African bowling attack before as well as to emerge as South Africa's leading bowler and a resounding success in the Triangular tournament, before commitments elsewhere in the form of the appointment as a colonial district commissioner in Nyasaland forced him to drift out of cricket – meaning that the enormous potential that he showed in that Triangular, as well as the expectations that he could be a mainstay in the South African bowling in the coming years, were not quite fulfilled.

Post World War I, South Africa first hosted in 1919–20 an Australian Imperial Forces side boasting cricketers of the calibre of Jack Gregory, Herbie Collins, Bert Oldfield, and Nip Pellew.

Taylor, at number four, batted for four and a half hours over an innings of 102 however he received little support from his teammates and South Africa lost by 109 runs.

Nourse, in particular, became famous for his hand-eye coordination and his excellent fielding, one of many to be produced by South Africa in the coming decades; natural skills which were according to legend inspired and developed by his father Dave's refusal to coach him as a youngster, demanding that he learned the rudiments of the game on his own, as he himself had.

At Trent Bridge, Captain Alan Melville and vice-captain, Dudley Nourse achieved a Test match record for a third wicket partnership of 319.

However, it is widely believed[48] the sides containing the likes of Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Gary Kirsten, Jacques Kallis and Hansie Cronje grossly underachieved, gaining a reputation as "chokers", due to them reaching the semi-finals of the Cricket World Cup four times, but failing to progress into the finals.

In the second part of the 1990s, South Africa had the highest winning percentage in ODIs of any team, but they were knocked out of the 1996 World Cup in the quarter-finals, and then were eliminated on countback after tying their semi-final against Australia in 1999.

[51] With the addition of high-class players such as AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla, the South African Cricket team started rising in the ICC rankings.

South Africa went on to take the series comfortably 2–0 and claim the top spot in the rankings, a position they retained for over a full calendar year from 20 August 2012.

Under Smith's leadership, South Africa has achieved some success, although they have been hampered by the retirements of many star players, including fast bowler Allan Donald and one-day specialist Jonty Rhodes.

At the 2019 Cricket World Cup South Africa lost the opening match of the tournament to England and followed this up with losses to Bangladesh and India.

In the 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup, South Africa reached the final unbeaten, with a resounding 9 wicket win over Afghanistan in a one-sided demolition.

South African fielders may wear a green cap or a white sun hat with the king protea badge in the middle.

In ICC limited-overs tournaments, a modified kit design is used with the sponsor's logos moving to the sleeve and 'South Africa' printed across the front.

[102] For the 2024–25 period, CSA awarded 18 players national contracts, from which selectors choose the core of the Test, One-Day, and Twenty20 International teams.