Makhaya Ntini - The man from Mdingi who became one of SA's greatest bowlers

There are 29 names on the honours board at Lord’s listing bowlers who have taken 10 wickets in a Test match at the famous ground.

The only South African there is Makhaya Ntini. In the second Test against England in 2003, Ntini took 10 for 220, helping SA to an innings victory.

Like an astronaut returning to Earth, he knelt after taking the 10th wicket and kissed the pitch. “There was a lot of emotion,” he told Neil Manthorp.

“Relief, enjoyment and a lot of pride. All I could think about was the fact that the name ‘Ntini’ would forever sit in the place they call the home of cricket.

“I thought of my children seeing their name on the wall one day, and then I thought of all the young black boys who would know that anything is possible.

But I was just glad to put a South African name up there because I wanted every South African to share my pride.”

Ntini was only the fourth black cricketer to play for SA, after Omar Henry, Paul Adams and Herschelle Gibbs, and the first black African player to represent the national team, and he will always be regarded as one of the country’s greatest bowlers and role models of any race.

He overcame early obstacles — a poverty-stricken background, barely disguised racism, the fierce scepticism of the critics when his career began — and went on to play more than 100 Tests and take nearly 400 wickets at an average of 28.82.

He had a rare ability to compress his wicket-taking, to strike repeatedly in the same game.

He took 10 wickets in a Test match four times, a feat not surpassed by any other South African bowler except Dale Steyn.

Ntini’s wickets at Lord’s were the most expensive of the 29 10-wicket hauls on the honours board, in terms of runs conceded, but this was a high-scoring Test and the key statistic was not how many runs any bowler conceded but the crushing margin of the South African victory — by an innings and 92 runs.

England began by scoring 173 all out, with Ntini taking five for 75. Then SA piled up a record 682 for six declared, including Graeme Smith’s massive innings of 259.

With a lead of 509, Ntini recalls that his teammates were absolutely determined not to have to bat again, but also not to allow England to bat out a draw.

“Corrie van Zyl came to me and said, ‘Now it’s all up to you, you can get 10 wickets here.’ He took me by the shoulder and showed me the board with the names of the people who had got 10 wickets and one was my hero, the West Indian Malcolm Marshall. At that stage, in my head I took on the responsibility of the game. I asked myself, ‘What do I want to achieve here?’ The most important thing was not to draw.”

Despite the Proteas’ massive first-innings total, it was not going to be easy. The England batting line-up was one of the most powerful of modern times, experienced and tough; the wicket was playing progressively easier. And within seven overs SA had lost young fast bowler Dewald Pretorius to injury.

“I had a heavy load on myself and I also had my own target — to get 10 wickets at Lord’s,” said Ntini.

I thought of all the young black boys who would know that anything is possible

—  Makhaya Ntini on becoming one of the elite players to have taken 10 wickets in a Test at Lord’s

Towards the end of the third day, the England openers were looking well set after posting a half-century stand in an hour. Then Andrew Hall had captain Michael Vaughan caught by [Shaun] Pollock, and within 15 minutes Ntini took the wicket of Marcus Trescothick.

“He was the one wicket I knew I would get. He was a left-hander and I had clean-bowled him in the first innings.”

England went into the fourth day on 129 for two, still confident of being able to bat through the game while chipping away at the remaining deficit of 380. The four-man South African attack had to get through a lot of overs: Pollock bowled 29, and when Ntini took his last wicket and the ninth of the innings, he had got through 31 overs — which was, as he said, “a lot of hard work for a fast bowler. Graeme knew I never said no. Even if he called me back and I had just finished a spell, I was always willing to work for him and win the game for him.”

Ntini took wickets at crucial times. With tea imminent on the fourth day, Nasser Hussain on 61 had been looking intimidatingly solid — and then Ntini had him caught behind (England 208 for four). The veteran Alec Stewart was the No.6 batsman — he went second ball to Ntini, and suddenly the England tail was exposed. The last remaining obstacle to a South African victory was Andrew Flintoff.

“He was the hero of England cricket,” Ntini remembers. “When he hit fours, the crowds would go berserk. They were cheering like you can’t believe. I went to my fielding position on the boundary and everyone was standing up and clapping. It was hero against hero. It was us against him. He was the only one. We knew that if we got him out, the game would be over.”

When Flintoff was the last man out, stumped off the bowling of Paul Adams, he had scored an astonishing 142 off 146 balls.

“The main thing I’ve been working on,” Ntini told the English media after the Lord’s triumph, “is hitting those areas of line and length where my bowling’s most effective, and making sure that Shaun Pollock and I work as a partnership. I focus on striking, on taking a wicket with every ball.”

He attributed this approach to having studied how West Indian paceman Marshall bowled. “I admired his balance and his aggression especially. He was always attacking and that’s something I’m looking for in my bowling.”

Cricket is very strong where I come from … on Boxing Day villages play against each other

—  Makhaya Ntini on the village cricket culture of the Eastern Cape

Playing at Lord’s was a long way from the rural Transkei village of Mdingi, where, growing up with other young Xhosa boys, he had been tasked with herding cattle. As Ntini related to sportswriter Daniel Gallan, on cold winter mornings he and his friends would keep warm in an unusual way. “We would wait for freshly dropped cow dung and sink our feet in it. When you don’t have shoes, you have to be creative.”

When he became an international cricketer, he kept a plastic-wrapped piece of cow dung in his kit bag, to remind him where he came from. “It was always the same piece of dung throughout my career, and was my lucky charm that kept me grounded. I would even kiss it when I needed a little extra out on the field. It clearly worked — just look at my stats!”

The English media in 2003 were fascinated by Ntini’s story. “Cricket is very strong where I come from,” Ntini told the Guardian. “It has a strong history and we have always played village tournaments on Boxing Day, when villages play against each other and a composite team is selected at the end. I would still like to play in those tournaments, but, unfortunately, I am usually playing international cricket then.”

Ntini was one of the products of the United Cricket Board’s development programme, in which his talents in village cricket were spotted by the legendary Border coach Greg Hayes. He was then enrolled at Dale College in King William’s Town, where he received the appropriate support. While there was certainly a cricket culture in the rural areas, he would not have progressed without the structured environment of Dale College.

He moved up through the ranks of schools and provincial cricket, and made his ODI debut for SA in January 1998 in Perth. His reaction when he first heard he had been selected for the match was: “Is this a joke? I don’t believe you.”

He took two New Zealand wickets for 31 runs in a solid victory for the Proteas. Ntini made his Test debut in March 1998 against Sri Lanka in Cape Town. He took four wickets in two Tests for 148 runs, and did not do much better in two Tests in England: six for 210 runs. He had done enough to suggest he could perform at the highest level, notably with four for 72 in the first innings against England at Leeds. But he had not done enough to prove his worth to those who claimed that his selection was based purely on affirmative action.

Then, after just four Tests, his world collapsed when he was charged, tried and convicted of rape. The UCB, with Ali Bacher as its CEO, was unwavering in its support of Ntini through the appeal process, and eventually he was acquitted. But the legal process took so long that, in effect suspended from the national team, he ended up missing nearly two years of international matches.

He was back in action, and under even more pressure to demonstrate that he was worth his place, against Sri Lanka in Galle in July 2000. He was unconvincing in that match (one for 73 in the only innings he bowled in) and in the first innings against New Zealand in Bloemfontein (one for 48) in November.

At that point Ntini’s six-match Test career return was 12 wickets for 479 runs at an average of 39.91. He badly needed a breakthrough performance — and it came in the second innings at Bloemfontein. Bowling at first change after Allan Donald and Pollock, he took six for 66 in a five-wicket win for SA.

“The Goodyear Park pitch had lain down and died sometime on Sunday,” wrote Peter Robinson, “but Ntini, whose boundless energy can exhaust anyone in his vicinity, ran in over after over after even Donald and Shaun Pollock had started to look ordinary … he came back after lunch to wrap up the tail, taking three wickets in three overs. It was a Herculean effort and he thoroughly deserved his share of the man-of-the-match award with Jacques Kallis.”

• This is an edited extract from South Africa’s Greatest Bowlers: Past and Present, by Ali Bacher and David Williams, published by Penguin Random House (R260).

Apart from Makhaya Ntini, the book features legends such as Hugh Tayfield, Neil Adcock, Peter Heine, Eric Petersen, Owen Williams, Peter Pollock, Vintcent van der Bijl, Pat Trimborn and Don Mackay-Coghill; post-isolation stars Allan Donald, Fanie de Villiers, Shaun Pollock and Paul Adams; and recent speedsters Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada, with fresh insights into their lives and careers.