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Neil Manthorp is a British-born South African writer. [1] Based in Cape Town, he is best known internationally for his coverage of cricket. He writes for the Telegraph and the Daily Mail.
Manthorp was born and educated in England, but considers himself very much a South African. When he was a year old, his parents emigrated from the North of England [2] and Manthorp spent his formative years in South Africa before returning to England to complete his schooling. With South Africa isolated in sport due to apartheid, he stayed on in Britain and began his journalistic career in 1986, commentating and writing freelance.
With the end of apartheid in 1990, he decided to return to South Africa, where he set up his own sports agency, MWP Media, in 1992.
He has stayed there ever since, apart from the necessary travel required to follow sport, which has taken him to all the cricketing corners of the world.
He has a YouTube account where you can watch him travelling.
He has covered more than 40 tours and 120 Test matches since South Africa's return to international cricket and Zimbabwe's elevation to Test status.
He is a regular commentator for SABC radio and television and has also joined the host radio teams in West Indies, New Zealand, Australia and England. He writes for newspapers and magazines and recently completed his fifth book "The Proteas: 20 Years, 20 Landmark matches" marking the 20th anniversary of South Africa's return to international cricket. He is commentating for Talksport on the 2018 England tour of Sri Lanka.
As well as cricket, he also writes on golf and rugby.
Gazza: the Gary Kirsten biography
The Beer Drinker's Guide to Losing Weight, (with Paddy Upton), The Penguin Group (SA) (Pty) Ltd, ISBN 0-14-027225-9
Graeme Smith: A Captain's Diary 2007-2009, Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN 978-1-86842-353-8
Taking the Mickey: the Mickey Arthur biography, Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN 978-1-86842-383-5
The Proteas: 20 Years, 20 Landmark Matches, Burnet Media, ISBN 978-0-9870058-1-6
Bouch: Through My Eyes, Jonathan Ball Publishers, ISBN 978-1-86842-590-7
Jacques Henry Kallis is a South African cricket coach and former cricketer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and as South Africa's greatest batsman ever, he is a right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium swing bowler. As of 2020 he is the only cricketer in the history of the game to score more than 10,000 runs and take over 250 wickets in both ODI and Test match cricket; he also took 131 ODI catches. He scored 13,289 runs in his Test match career and took 292 wickets and 200 catches.
Allan Anthony Donald is a former South African cricketer who is now a cricket coach. Often nicknamed 'White Lightning', he is considered as one of the South Africa national cricket team's most successful pace bowlers.
Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's Test Match Special. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he became a cricket commentator noted for his "wonderful gift for evoking cricketing moments" by the BBC.
The South Africa national cricket team, also known as the Proteas, represents South Africa in men's international cricket and is administered by Cricket South Africa. South Africa is a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC), with Test, One-Day International (ODI) and Twenty20 International (T20I) status. Its nickname derives from South Africa's national flower, Protea cynaroides, commonly known as the 'king protea'.
The South Africa women's national cricket team, nicknamed the Proteas, represents South Africa in international women's cricket. One of eight teams competing in the ICC Women's Championship, the team is organised by Cricket South Africa (CSA), a full member of the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Robert James Kirtley is a former English Test cricketer, who was born on 10 January 1975 in Eastbourne in the county of Sussex. He is a right arm fast medium bowler and a right hand batsman. After prep school at St.Andrews School, Eastbourne, he was educated at Clifton College.
Peter Maclean Pollock is a retired South African cricketer. He has played a continuing role in the South Africa cricket team as a player and selector. He was voted a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1966. He was primarily a fast bowler, but was also a useful late-order batsman.
Johan Botha is an South African-Australian cricket coach, cricketer and long-distance runner, who played for the South African national team between 2005 and 2012. He moved to Australia in 2012 to play in that country's domestic leagues, and in 2016 became an Australian citizen. In January 2019, he retired from all forms of the game. However, in December of 2020, he made a comeback as a replacement player for the Hobart Hurricanes in the 2020–21 Big Bash League.
Meyrick Wayne Pringle is a former South African cricketer who played in four Tests and seventeen One Day Internationals (ODIs) from 1992 to 1995.
Stephen James Cook is a former South African footballer and cricketer who played in three Tests and four ODIs from 1991 to 1993. His son Stephen Cook currently plays for Gauteng and the national side, the Proteas. He played football for Wits University while studying for a teaching degree in the late seventies and featured in the 1978 Mainstay Cup Final.
Jonny Steinberg is a South African writer and scholar. He is the author of several books about everyday life in the wake of South Africa's transition to democracy. Two of them, Midlands (2002), about the murder of a white South African farmer, and The Number (2004), a biography of a prison gangster, won the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award. In 2013 he was awarded the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize.
Benjamin Pogrund is a South African-born Israeli author.
Jürgen Schadeberg was a German-born South African photographer and artist. He photographed key moments in South African history, including iconic photographs such as Nelson Mandela at Robben Island prison. He also lived, worked and taught in London and Spain, and photographed in many African countries.
Alison Mitchell is an English cricket commentator and sports broadcaster. She was the first woman to become a regular commentator on the BBC's Test Match Special, and has been commentating on men’s and women’s international cricket around the world since 2007. She also spent many years reporting and commentating on a variety of sports for BBC Radio 5 Live and Five Live Sports Extra, including Olympic and Commonwealth Games, Wimbledon, Australian Open, French Open and Open Golf. In March 2014, she was voted SJA Sports Broadcaster of the Year 2013 by members of the Sports Journalists' Association. She is also the first woman to have called men's cricket ball-by-ball on ABC Radio Grandstand in Australia.
South African born Patrick Anthony Howard 'Paddy' Upton is a head coach in Professional T20 cricket, Mental Coach to professional athletes, Executive Coach and Professor of Practice at Deakin University. After attaining his Master's degree in Sport Science at University of Cape Town, he worked as the Strength and Conditioning coach for the South Africa cricket team (1994–1998) and the Western Province rugby team (1999)
Cricket is one of the most popular sports in South Africa. Traditionally played by English-speaking whites and the Indian community, the sport is now listed in the top two most popular among all race groups. Since the end of apartheid, a higher proportion of white players have come from Afrikaans-speaking backgrounds, and the sport has grown substantially among the Coloured and black African population.
The D'Oliveira affair was a prolonged political and sporting controversy relating to the scheduled 1968–69 tour of South Africa by the England cricket team, who were officially representing the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The point of contention was whether or not the England selectors would include Basil D'Oliveira, a mixed-race South African player who had represented England in Test cricket since 1966, having moved there six years earlier. With South Africa under apartheid, the potential inclusion by England of a non-white South African in their tour party became a political issue.
Margie Orford is a South African journalist, film director and author of crime fiction, children's fiction, non-fiction and school text books.
Khaya Majola was a South African cricket player and administrator. A black African, Majola played cricket during the apartheid-era in South Africa. Early in his playing career, he was given opportunities by the South African African Cricket Board (SAACB) to play alongside white players in exhibition matches, and to play overseas in England. He soon rejected further offers from the SAACB, feeling that the matches were token gestures, and that they were using black players as tools to overturn the sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa, and enable the national team, consisting solely of white players, to be re-admitted into international cricket. This decision meant that Majola played almost all of his cricket in the Howa Bowl between 1973 and 1991, a non-racial tournament organised by the South African Cricket Board of Control (SACBOC), who supported the boycott. Matches were typically played on matting wickets in poor conditions; they were not considered to be of first-class status at the time, but were subsequently added to the records.
The England cricket team toured South Africa during November and December 2020 to play three One Day International (ODI) and three Twenty20 International (T20I) matches. However, the ODI matches were called off due to a COVID-19 outbreak. The ODI series would have formed part of the inaugural 2020–23 ICC Cricket World Cup Super League.