What was cricket about for Makhaya Ntini? Wickets? Sure, he was a fast bowler and taking wickets was important. Travel? Yes, that was nice, got to see new places. The camaraderie? Certainly, hanging out with a bunch of mates for months at a time was lekker. Fun? Absolutely!
Ntini played the game for fun. Strip away everything else, the statistics, the long days and nights on tour, his friendships with Murali, Gayle, McMillan and Klusener, beyond all that Ntini wanted to have fun.
It just so happened that while he was having fun, he also became this country’s most important cricketer – some might say sportsman – in the post-isolation era. If he’d only been judged as a cricketer that would have been sufficient. He was darn good at what he did on the field, with all those Test wickets (390), series wins in Australia and England, and record breaking feats at Lord’s (2003) and in Trinidad (2005).
He took more Test wickets than Malcolm Marshall, Ian Botham and Allan Donald. His place among the top echelon of the best fast bowlers is assured. But for South Africa, Ntini was a great deal more. He made black people proud of his phenomenal achievements in a “white man’s sport” and through his effervescence made all South Africans feel good about themselves.
He came to the sport very young, and being from an impoverished background, in the rural Eastern Cape town of Mdingi, meant he couldn’t afford proper equipment, yet his enthusiasm never waned.
“For us cricket was fun, we didn’t dream or think about going forward from there,” he told me about is formative years.
“Cricket was a white dominated sport. At the time I started you never thought you’d break into those bigger teams. We never had kit, that killed us, we never had bats, or pads. You look at the guys you’re playing against and they’ve got a new bat, a nice new pair of pads and you doubt yourself. They look like they know what they’re here for, we just went to learn and have fun.”
Times weren’t always fun, though. In his emotional farewell in Johannesburg last week he spoke of the anguish that enveloped him in the wake of his rape conviction.
“That was the most difficult time of my life, to have the badge of rapist attached to you,” Ntini remarked.
The conviction was overturned on appeal a little less than a year later. He could resume his career and take his place among those South Africans whose post-isolation exploits did so much to ignite the notion of the “Rainbow Nation”.
So he took wickets in London, Perth, Chennai, Port-of-Spain and Johannesburg; South Africa claimed Test series wins in the West Indies, England and Australia on the back of those performances and Ntini’s cricketing legacy was entrenched.
But in addition to that, so was his personality. When it came to signing autographs he was always the last to leave. He’d engage with kids all day long; in South Africa it didn’t matter what they looked like, and the same held true for India and Australia. Which is why Gerald Majola – Cricket SA’s chief executive – emphasised the ambassadorial role he saw Ntini fulfiling now that his international career was over.
Ntini will enforce the virtues of hand work, for that is the way in which he conducted his own career. How many times did you hear he was the fittest player in the team? Well it was true. He’d bowl three spells during a day’s Test cricket, then run back to the team hotel. On his off days he’d run (just faster) and when there was nothing else to do, he’d run.
And so he kept his fitness levels up and built his stamina. It was the primary reason for his longevity, for not many fast bowlers would have survived carrying the heavy burden Ntini took on, particularly in the early years of Graeme Smith’s captaincy.
His action was unusual, the result of trying to protect his feet from the concrete strip he bowled on in his youth, yet he adapted his technique so well that that “weakness” was actually a strength.
He formed a devastating combination with Shaun Pollock with the new ball and ’keeper Mark Boucher, who combined with him for 84 dismissals in Tests.
His attention in the short term will switch to domestic cricket and specifically his franchise, the Warriors. In his first-up spell on Friday night in the MTN40, he made some of the most talented young batsmen in the country – Rilee Rossouw and Dean Elgar, who play for the Knights – look ordinary.
Ntini will continue to ply his trade locally, and most importantly he will continue to have fun.
TOP TEN NTINI HIGHLIGHTS
1 – Lord’s Test 2003
10/220 At the peak of his power he went to ‘HQ’ and became the only SA bowler to take ‘tenfir’ at Lord’s. That match is also memorable for Ntini breaking Andrew Flintoff’s bat in the second innings, as the big all-rounder made a blazing century.
2 – Second Test v West Indies Trinidad
On a low slow surface and following on from a poor performance in the first Test, Ntini produced a performance that marked him out as one of the great fast bowlers of the past decade. His final figures of 13/132 were the best Test analysis yet by a South African bowler. His 7/37 in the second innings were career-best figures too.
3 – THAT single, deflected perfectly to third man to put Mark Boucher back on strike in the ‘438’ game. Boucher then hit the winning runs.
4 – His 6/22 in the third ODI v Australia at Newlands in 2006, that was instrumental in bowling the Aussies out for 93, are the best analysis by a South African in an ODI.
5 – 31.4-12-66-6, his first career Test five-for against New Zealand on a flat pitch in Bloemfontein in 2000.
6 – His fabulous first-day display against the Australians in the first Test in Perth in 2005 when he claimed 5-93 as South Africa bowled out the Aussies for 258 in 75.2 overs.
7 – The third Test v Australia and first Test v New Zealand saw Ntini claim back to back ‘tenfirs’, the first time that feat had been accomplished by a South African. Against the Aussies at the Wanderers in 2006 he claimed 10-178 and two weeks later followed that up against the Black Caps by claiming 10-145
8 – Stephen Fleming c Boucher b Ntini 26. Perth, January 16, 1998. His first international wicket. He finished with 662 in total across all three formats.
9 – Aravinda da Silva c Boucher b Ntini 77. His first Test wicket.
10 – His 100th Test v England in Centurion, December 16, 2009. His dismissal of Andrew Strauss sent all the spectators in the ground at the time to bars, where SAB had offered to hand out a free Castle.