South Africa worships sport, athletic competition woven into its social, cultural and educational fabric. And now, post-apartheid, it is freighted with resonance beyond itself, seeking to repair and represent the rainbow nation by honouring values of equality and opportunity.
In January 2018, Lungi Ngidi was picked to make his Test debut against India, aged 21. Bowling in the first innings, he managed a wicket and a run out but then, in the second, having already removed KL Rahul, he knocked over Virat Kohli, cricket’s biggest superstar.
In the moment, Ngidi was all business but once eyes were off him and he retreated to field on the boundary, his face began twitching into a grin of satisfaction that he simply could not suppress, a schoolboy trying not to crease in class. Tiny movements of moving eloquence expressing satisfaction, possibility and wonder crystallised the greatest moment of his life, bringing him to emotional overload and the brink of laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of it all: the sense we almost never have, that anything is possible. Outwardly he did all he could to affect calm but inside he was leaping and we still can’t help but leap too, joy radiating through him and into us – all the more so given he returned figures of six for 39, winning the player of the match award as South Africa won by 135 runs.
From Wozniacki’s sweet relief to Tardelli’s intense scream via Garrincha’s mesmeric dribbling and more
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South Africa worships sport, athletic competition woven into its social, cultural and educational fabric. And now, post-apartheid, it is freighted with resonance beyond itself, seeking to repair and represent the rainbow nation by honouring values of equality and opportunity.
In January 2018, Lungi Ngidi was picked to make his Test debut against India, aged 21. Bowling in the first innings, he managed a wicket and a run out but then, in the second, having already removed KL Rahul, he knocked over Virat Kohli, cricket’s biggest superstar.
In the moment, Ngidi was all business but once eyes were off him and he retreated to field on the boundary, his face began twitching into a grin of satisfaction that he simply could not suppress, a schoolboy trying not to crease in class. Tiny movements of moving eloquence expressing satisfaction, possibility and wonder crystallised the greatest moment of his life, bringing him to emotional overload and the brink of laughter at the sheer ridiculousness of it all: the sense we almost never have, that anything is possible. Outwardly he did all he could to affect calm but inside he was leaping and we still can’t help but leap too, joy radiating through him and into us – all the more so given he returned figures of six for 39, winning the player of the match award as South Africa won by 135 runs.
From Wozniacki’s sweet relief to Tardelli’s intense scream via Garrincha’s mesmeric dribbling and more
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/apr/06/the-joy-of-six-moments-of-unbridled-joy-in-sport