Ranjitsinhji once declared that `cricket is certainly amongst the most powerful links which keep our Empire together', but it was a war about gold that forced the independent Afrikaner republics into that Empire. England's cricketers this winter will start their tour 100 years after the start of the Anglo-Boer War.

The Boer War forced former team-mates onto opposing sides, killed some fine cricketers … and provided some unlikely humour. Rudyard Kipling's cynical `flanneled fools and muddied oafs at goal' was inspired by his South African experience, but most saw cricket as a metaphor for nobility. War at the turn of the century was a chance to live out Henry Newbolt's romantic vision:

The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead
And England's far and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks;
Play up! Play up! and play the game! Cricket, war and empire were memorably linked at Crystal Palace in 1990. Sir George White was the soldier whose `weakness in letting himself be trapped at Ladysmith … wrecked the whole strategy of war', according to Thomas Pakenham. The War Office hoodwinked the British public into believing he had fought a fine rearguard action. White's first gambit on returning home was to parade onto a cricket field to meet WG Grace. The Doctor's warm greetings helped establish the general as a war hero and maintain the myth of Imperial invincibility.

When Britain refused to withdraw its troops from the Boer republics' borders, war was declared on Oct 11, 1899. Within the week, Transvaal and Orange Free State forces had surrounded Kimberley and Mafeking in the northern Cape. The British forces endured a seven-month siege at Mafeking, aided by the curiously dour strategy of the Boer generals. Colonel Baden-Powell made the most of the Boers' righteous refusal to sully the Sabbath with gunfire. A diary entry of court interpreter Sol Plaatjie refers to a typical Sunday: `The usual things: joy, pleasure, merriment, sports, etc, etc.'

The Boers issued a challenge: `To Colonel Baden-Powell. I see in the Bulawayo Chronicle that your men play cricket on Sundays …'

Plaatjie, a member of the Eccentrics Cricket Club who went on to be the first secretary of the African National Congress (ANC), went for a ride beyond the lines and `saw the Boers so close that I nearly felt inclined to go over and have a chat with them as they were seated on the ridges of their trenches looking at games played so merrily round our camp with longing eyes.'

Actually the Boers went further than looking on. They issued a challenge: `To Colonel Baden-Powell. I see in the Bulawayo Chronicle that you men play cricket on Sundays and give concerts and balls on Sunday evenings. In case you would allow my men to join in the same it would be very agreeable to me as here outside Mafeking there are seldom any of the fair sex and there can be no merriment without their being present. Wishing you a pleasant day, I remain your obliging friend, S. Eloff, Commandant of Johannesburg Commando.'

Baden-Powell's reply show quintessential British pluck: `Sir, I beg to thank you for your letter of yesterday … I should like nothing better – after the match in which we are at present engaged is over. But just now we are having our innings and have so far scored 200 days, not out, against the bowling of [General] Cronje … and we are having a very enjoyable game.'

Plaatjie extended the cricketing metaphor to the death toll: `The following is the result of the season's fixtures between Baden-Powell's 400 and Cronje's ten times that number: Baden-Powell 287, Cronje 19. What a licking!'

The Morning Post's siege correspondent praised the endurance of the troops by recalling two of Lancashire's finest opening batsmen: `It is a great thing to make a regiment that will charge any place on earth; it is a greater thing to have made a regiment that will sit tight like the Manchester under heavy fire, cracking pawky little north-country jokes that somehow recall the brave days of Hornby and Barlow.' An earlier attempt to overthrow the Transvaal government inspired Kipling to write `If' in praise of the leader of the Jameson Raid. `If you can make one heap of all your winnings/And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss' celebrates the gamble inherent in war and sport, but Lord Hawke's 1896 touring team had a tough time because of Jameson's folly. The raid's failure was announced to Cape Prime Minister and co-conspirator Cecil Rhodes while he was hosting a lunch for the cricketers. On the way north they were stopped by Boer commandos, and only extricated themselves by giving coaching tips. They arrived in Jo'burg in time to see General Cronje march the Raiders through the streets, but were allowed to join Jameson for dinner – in prison.

Identities were fluid at the height of Empire. Major RM Poore was chosen for England in 1895–96, but his commanders would only give him leave if he played for South Africa. Poore scored 1399 runs for Hampshire in just two months in 1899, before the Boer War drew him back to South Africa, this time to represent Britain.

The war put a stop to England's planned 1899 tour but, confident the war would be over before Christmas 1900, a South African tour of England was arranged for 1901. The war actually ended in May of the following year, but the tour went ahead.

 Jimmy Sinclair made his cricket name by scoring SA's first Test century. He was a big man who once hit eight sixes out of the ground at Newlands. He was also too big for any clothes which his Boer captors could find. He escaped and joined the controversial 1901 tour.

On the Boer side, Western Province CC member PH de Villiers got VIP treatment from the Lancashire soldiers who captured him, because he had played with their idol, Johnny Briggs, De Villiers was in cricket kit when he was caught and was probably lucky he didn't play for Green Point – their colours are the same as Yorkshire's. De Villiers did not allow captivity on a faraway island to stop his cricket. He arranged for the Boer Po Ws to play a Ceylon XI.

The Yorkshire amateur Frank Milligan was less fortunate. He was shot dead trying to relieve Mafeking. Among his possessions was a fixture list for 1900. Fever claimed thousands of men. The grave of Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Christian Victor, who kept wicket for I. Zingari, is in Pretoria, where he died of enteric fever. And a gravestone in Durban reads `In Memory of Jack Ferris (The Australian Bowler), who died at Durban, 17th Nov, 1900.' Ferris formed one of Australia's finest new-ball partnerships with Charles `Terror' Turner.

A hundred years after the ghastly conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives, gold is again at the centre of a dispute between South Africa and Britain. The Bank of England's decision to sell its gold reserves is causing anger and unemployment in South Africa. Conversation under the sumptuous marquees of Randjesfontein during the first match of the tour had better be restricted to cricket, in the interests of peace.

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