Makhaya Ntini by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Player:

M Ntini

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DateLine: 17th April 2009

 

A product of the United Cricket Board's development programme, Ntini was discovered at a cattle farm in the Eastern Cape, given a pair of boots and packed off to Dale College, one of the country's best regarded cricketing nurseries. With an action consciously modelled on that of Malcolm Marshall, Ntini found himself touring Australia at the end of 1997 when Roger Telemachus failed a fitness test. He made his one-day debut at Perth in early 1998, bowling well in helpful conditions and his Test debut came against Sri Lanka in the same year.

 

Although he is a little short of the genuine pace of a Brett Lee or a Shoaib Akhtar, he is steadily improving and became the first South African to take ten wickets at Lord's in 2003 before devastating the West Indies in Trinidad in 2005 with 13 for 132, the best-ever match figures by a South African bowler. Finished the series against Australia at the end of 2005 with nine wickets at 29.33, including a menacing 5 for 64 in the first innings at Perth. finished the 2005-06 season with 48 Test victims. When India toured South Africa at the end of 2006, Ntini topped the wickets tally in the Tests with 15 and just after that, when it was Pakistan's turn to visit for three Tests, he passed 300 wickets in a 19-wicket series.

 

Ntini was unable to carry his hot streak into the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, where he managed just six wickets from seven games. He was dropped for South Africa's last two games, an indication of just how poorly he was performing, and was comprehensively outbowled by Dale Steyn in the series against West Indies, scraping 10 wickets at an unhealthy 38.50. But he improved his average with another 10 wickets against India, and came back from a difficult start to play a vital role in South Africa's subsequent series win in England.