July 5, 1901. That was the day the first ever South African side played a cricket match in the Indian sub-continent. Oddly enough, this was a team of Boer prisoners of war, most of them Dutch speaking Afrikaners. Arunabha Sengupta writes about the historic contest that took place between the Boer Prisoners of War and the Colts Cricket Club at the Nondescripts Cricket Ground, Colombo.