Ali Bacher served as the first-ever chief executive of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
 

The significance of India-South Africa relations is that India was the first country we played in after our readmission to world cricket in 1991; and India's was the first national team to tour South Africa in 1992/93 under the new dispensation.

The latter tour was known as the Friendship Tour and although matches between our nations have always been tough and relentless the strong bonds between India and democratic South Africa continues to give us a sense of real pride.

It was India, remember, that was the first foreign nation to close its embassy in South Africa upon the advent of apartheid in 1948, and it was India that proposed South Africa's readmission to international cricket at the ICC's annual meeting in mid-1991.

Our first visit to the subcontinent almost 17 years ago was to play three hastily arranged one-day internationals. It came about in storybook fashion: I was among a group of cricket officials representing the new United Cricket Board of South Africa who were invited to Sharjah in late October 1991 to attend an emergency meeting of the ICC on South Africa's proposed participation in the 1992 Cricket World Cup. That was not our sole goal but, having been accepted, we immediately embarked on a whistle-stop goodwill visit to the subcontinent.

When we arrived at Mumbai, the news came through that Pakistan had withdrawn from a forthcoming series in India. We were then taken aback when we were invited by the BCCI president Madhavrao Scindia and the BCCI secretary and CAB president Jagmohan Dalmiya to send our team to India as a replacement.

We returned to South Africa on a Sunday and the following Thursday we boarded a special charter flight from Johannesburg, arriving in India the next day. We had only been readmitted to the ICC as a full member some five months earlier and because South Africa had been in the apartheid-induced wilderness for over 21 years we didn't even have a national team to speak of. The side that went to India in November 1991 was therefore put together mainly on reputation at very short notice.

But it was not simply a cricket tour. It was, in truth, a spiritual experience. For the first time ever, South African and Indian administrators would watch cricket side by side; for the first time ever, a South African team would play at the breathtaking Eden Gardens; for the first time ever, a South African aircraft was permitted to fly over India and land at Kolkata.

What struck me about that remarkable city was the warmth and love that its people exuded. Our trip from the airport to the hotel on our day of arrival was something I shall never forget. I was told there were in excess of 100,000 lining the streets to greet us. I have never been made to feel more welcome.

A few days later, history was made when our makeshift team became the first from South Africa to play against India at Eden Gardens. There were 95,000 people inside the stadium and thousands more outside it. I remember it all so clearly, the sheer magnitude of the occasion.

In 1970, I had been captain of the South African team that beat Australia in a Test series. Because of apartheid, that was the last time we played. Because of apartheid, I never had the chance to play against India. In 1991, I was the manager of the first South African team to visit India. Looking back, it is difficult to describe my feelings.

Since then, South Africa and India have played against each other many times, and in some memorable matches. In Test cricket, there have been 19 matches, 7 of them in India. Of those, the honours are even with 3 wins each. Such is the intense rivalry between two proud cricketing nations and the series ahead will be no different, I am sure.

It is significant that India's new coach is Gary Kirsten. He was once the batting mainstay in the South African team and his three Test centuries against India are still the most by a South African batsman against India.

Gary's presence in the Indian dressing room will surely add a new dimension to the contests about to unfold.

The South African team, currently ranked No 1 in the world in ODIs, will not lack from motivation in attempting to take their form into the Test arena. Even the recent controversy associated with the selection of the team will, I am sure, not deter them in their quest.

In a sense, South African cricket is still in a state of transition. The ongoing priority is to redress the imbalances of the past and ensure that the team is truly representative of all the cricketers of South Africa, black and white. This process of transformation is an imperative if we are to achieve our goals as the Rainbow Nation.

After South Africa's triumph in the Rugby World Cup in Paris last year, our president Thabo Mbeki made a significant statement. In underlining the importance of being a winning sporting nation, he implied that we should always pick our best teams based on merit. At the same time he made the important point that transformation of teams should be from the bottom up and that, because of the imbalances that still exist at grassroots level, there was a need to provide more resources in this area of development.

I was therefore more than a bit surprised to see that cricket is applying a so-called quota selection at national level.

It was once important for quota selection to ensure that the makeup of the team was more representative – I in fact was in the forefront of that initiative – but we have surely moved on since then. A number of black players have secured places in the Proteas' team on merit alone and, on the basis of this natural evolution, more will automatically come through on merit without the need for quotas.