Breaking through

Makhaya Ntini: 'I always believed that if I performed well they could not keep me out of the side'

When Makhaya Ntini stepped on to the international stage, he carried an extra political burden of having to show that black South Africans could live with the likes of Donald, Pollock, Waugh and Warne. As far as South African cricket was concerned he could not afford to fail.

"Yes, I was definitely aware there was a lot of talk about transformation," Ntini says. "But I could not let myself be worried about that. I knew I had to improve as a cricketer. I realised I could also do the things Donald, Pollock and Kallis did and I always believed that if I performed well they could not keep me out of the side."

He had shown plenty of self-belief just to get that far. From humble beginnings tending cattle in his home village of Mdingi in the Eastern Cape, Ntini overcame not only the hardships of rural poverty but also the cultural difficulties of being a black kid, barely able to speak English, entering an environment where he had to build bonds with urban white contemporaries. He had to overcome the doubters, including team-mates.

"I realised what a big task it was to play international cricket," he says. "When I came into the team there were a lot of experienced guys around, big names like Brian McMillan, Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald. I saw it as a learning curve and any time I got the opportunity to learn something from those guys, I took it."

Bowling fast and wide of the crease, angling the ball in to the right-handed batsman, Ntini played only a couple of one-day internationals on his first tour to Australia in 1997-98. A few weeks later, against Sri Lanka, he became the first development player to play in a Test. He toured England later in 1998, playing in the third and fifth Tests, but he faced his greatest test the following year when he was convicted of rape. Though subsequently acquitted he looked as if he might live forever in the shadow of that incident. But he poured everything into his cricket, becoming stronger, fitter and wiser.

Ntini's stamina won particular admiration during the 2000-01 visit from New Zealand, when on a flat-track and a blazing hot day at Bloemfontein he bowled 31 overs and took six wickets for 66 runs. At the start of the summer of 2001-02 he was named one of South Africa's cricketers of the year, only to suffer such a drop in form that he was excluded from the Test series in Australia. While his team-mates were being pummelled there Ntini regained confidence. "Being dropped wasn't a big problem for me," he said at the time. "It forced me to find out where I went wrong. I think I came back a better player."

The return series in South Africa confirmed his status as a senior player. Replacing the injured Shaun Pollock with the new ball in the first Test at Johannesburg Ntini took Matthew Hayden's edge in his first over, only for Jacques Kallis to drop a simple chance at second slip and Hayden to score 122. But Ntini still finished as the only South African to have enhanced his reputation in a record defeat. With better luck in the second Test at Cape Town he finished the three-match series with 11 wickets and new-found responsibility. "I realise I have to set an example for the younger players. As a senior player you must go out and put the ball in the right areas and be professional," he says.

Ntini, who will have his 26th birthday during the summer series, is one of only six players who toured England in 1998. Since then his angle of delivery has changed, enabling him to straighten the ball off the seam and making him much more dangerous. He also appreciates the significance of this England tour in establishing the direction South African cricket takes.

"There are a lot of new guys in the side and it is important we show how good we are as a team. We can't compare ourselves with teams from the past; the circumstances are different. It's like people comparing [former South African president] Nelson Mandela and [South African president] Thabo Mbeki. You can't."