On 15 January 1819 officers of the Cape Town garrison played the rank-and-file of the 21st Light Dragoons at cricket on Green Point Common, on the open ground below Signal Hill. The match — recorded in the Cape Town Gazette — is the earliest documented cricket fixture in southern Africa and the founding event of South African cricket history.
Cape Town had been a British colony since 1806. Cricket was a regimental sport carried wherever British troops served.
Britain had taken the Cape Colony from the Dutch in 1806 and a substantial garrison was stationed at Cape Town from then onwards. Cricket arrived with the regiments. The January 1819 match — held in the Cape summer at the height of the season — was reported in the Cape Town Gazette of 18 January. The Officers won by 32 runs. The Green Point Common ground would, by the late nineteenth century, become Newlands and the heart of South African cricket.
1806
Britain takes the Cape Colony from the Dutch
15 Jan 1819
First documented cricket in South Africa
1864
Western Province Cricket Club founded
12-13 Mar 1889
South Africa's first Test match
Cricket continued in Cape Town through the nineteenth century. The Western Province Cricket Club was founded in 1864; South Africa played its first Test in 1889.
The founding entry of South African cricket — the start of a lineage that runs to the modern Test side.
Modern South African cricket descends from these earliest Cape Town garrison matches. The 1819 fixture is the earliest verifiable starting point.
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1811-07-04
The 1811 Lord's season was the leanest of the Middle Ground years. With the Napoleonic blockade at its tightest, willow scarce, professionals diverted to militia service and the betting public's purses thin, only fourteen major matches were played at Lord's all summer. The 1811 season is the clearest measure of cricket's wartime contraction.
Officers vs Civilians
1812-12-15
By the close of 1812 cricket was being played regularly in both Madras and Bombay — the earliest documented fixtures in either Presidency. Garrison officers and civilian East India Company servants ran the matches; the Madras Gazette and Bombay Courier preserved the earliest scoresheets. The Calcutta game (documented 1804) had been joined by all three Presidency capitals.
Kent vs MCC
1813-09-09
On 9-10 September 1813 Kent played the MCC at the Vine, Sevenoaks — the first post-war major match at the historic Kent ground and the start of the Vine's revival as a regular major venue. The Vine had hosted little major cricket since 1808; the September 1813 fixture marked its return to the front rank.