Makhaya Ntini is a former
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
n
cricketCricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
er who was the first ethnically
blackThe term black people is used in systems of racial classification for humans of a dark skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups.Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class, socio-economic status also plays a...
player to play for the South African team. A fast bowler, he tends to bowl from wide of the crease with brisk, although not express, pace. He survived legal controversy early on in his career to become only the third South African to take 300 Test wickets after
Shaun PollockShaun Maclean Pollock is a retired South African cricketer who is considered a bowling all-rounder. From 2000 to 2003 he was the captain of the South African cricket team, and also played for Africa XI, World XI, Dolphins and Warwickshire. He was also chosen as the Wisden Cricketer of the Year in...
and
Allan DonaldAllan Anthony Donald is a former South African cricketer and one of their most successful pace bowlers.In his prime, he was one of the best fast bowlers ever seen in Test cricket, reaching the top of the ICC Test rankings in 1998 and peaked with a top ICC ranking of 895 points the next year, the...
, and to reach second place in the ICC test match bowling ratings. He plays domestic cricket for the
Chennai Super KingsChennai Super Kings is a franchise cricket team based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu that plays in the Indian Premier League. Founded in 2008, the team is currently captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coached by Stephen Fleming, a former New Zealand cricketer. The team's home ground is the M. A...
in the
Indian Premier LeagueThe Indian Premier League is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It was initiated by the Board of Control for Cricket in India , headquartered in Mumbai, and is supervised by BCCI Vice President Rajeev Shukla, who serves as the league's Chairman and Commissioner...
.
Early recognition
Makhaya Ntini was born in Mdingi, a small village in
Cape ProvinceThe Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...
which is near
King William's TownKing William's Town is a town in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa along the banks of the Buffalo River. The town is about 40 minutes' motorway drive WNW of the Indian Ocean port of East London...
. He was discovered by a Boland Cricket Board development officer who was setting up a mini-cricket programme. Although Ntini was both too old and too big to participate in the programme, the officer, Raymond Bool noticed the bared-footed cowherd's enthusiasm and talent for bowling. He lent the 15 year old Ntini a pair of plimsolls and arranged for him to participate in a net session in King William's Town. Ntini impressed Bool, who contacted the head of the development programme, Greg Hayes, and the pair placed Ntini in a junior cricket festival in
QueenstownQueenstown, named after Queen Victoria, is a town in the middle of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, roughly half way in between the towns of Cathcart and Sterkstroom. It is currently the commercial, administrative, and educational centre of the prosperous surrounding farming district...
. For the festival, Hayes purchased Ntini his first pair of boots – but later had to give the young bowler instructions not to wear them indoors, or when herding cattle.
Two years later, he was selected to tour
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with the South Africa Under-19 squad, and played all five of the youth internationals. England dominated both One Day Internationals (ODIs) during the tour, with the South Africans only managing to take one wicket across the two matches, which fell to Pierre Joubert. In the Test series, which England won 2–0, Ntini claimed nine wickets, the second-most by a South African bowler. His bowling was expensive, coming at a rate of 4.53 runs per over: more than any other South African with the exception of
Mark BoucherMark Verdon Boucher is a South African cricketer, who holds the record for the most Test dismissals by a wicket-keeper. He was educated at Selborne College and has represented Border, Africa XI, ICC World XI, Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kolkata Knight Riders of the Indian Premier League, and...
, who is best known as a
wicket-keeperThe wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being guarded by the batsman currently on strike...
. After two matches for
BorderBorder cricket team is the team representing the Border province in domestic first-class cricket in South Africa. The team began playing in March 1898....
against the touring Kenyans, Ntini made his
first-classFirst-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
debut in November 1995, facing an England XI. He claimed two wickets in England's only innings as Border were beaten comprehensively.
In his debut season, Ntini claimed 17 wickets at an
averageBowling average is a statistic measuring the performance of bowlers in the sport of cricket.A bowler's bowling average is defined as the total number of runs conceded by the bowlers divided by the number of wickets taken by the bowler, so the lower the average the better. It is similar to earned...
of 37.05 in first-class competitions. His best performance in an innings came against Free State, when he claimed three wickets and conceded 49 runs (3/49) during his 17 overs. He once again toured with the national Under-19s in March and April 1996, touring
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
where he played three youth Tests, and one of the three ODIs. After claiming five wickets in the first Test, and none in the second, Ntini displayed his talent in the third match, taking 6/53 in the first innings and 3/48 in the second innings.
International career
Ntini returned to the South African side for a Sharjah tournament in 2000. His improvement was clear as he bowled with greater control.
In 2003 he became the first South African to take 10 wickets at
Lord's Cricket GroundLord's Cricket Ground is a cricket venue in St John's Wood, London. Named after its founder, Thomas Lord, it is owned by Marylebone Cricket Club and is the home of Middlesex County Cricket Club, the England and Wales Cricket Board , the European Cricket Council and, until August 2005, the...
. Arguably his best performance, however, came on 12 April 2005, when Ntini took 13 wickets for 132 runs against the West Indies at
Port of SpainPort of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...
. This remains the most wickets taken by a South African cricketer in a Test match. On 3 March 2006, Ntini also achieved the best bowling figures by a South African in an ODI, demolishing
AustraliaThe Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...
with 6 wickets for 22 runs. A popular figure in South African sport, Ntini was voted their favourite sportsman in a research poll conducted by the
South African Press AssociationThe South African Press Association, commonly known as SAPA, is the national news agency of South Africa.-History:The agency was established on July 1, 1938, by major South African newspapers to facilitate the sharing of news. Reuters had dominated the internal supply of news in South Africa until...
.
Ntini went on to establish himself as South Africa's premier fast bowler and one of the leading fast bowlers in the world. In February 2009 he was ranked as the world's fifth-best Test bowler behind
Muttiah MuralitharanMuttiah Muralitharan , often referred to as Murali, is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who was rated the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 2002...
,
Dale SteynDale Willem Steyn is a South African cricketer who plays in Test and One Day International cricket for South Africa. He is currently the number one ranked Test bowler in the world and achieved the 900+ points benchmark on 13th Nov 2011. Steyn plays domestic cricket in South Africa for Cape Cobras...
,
Stuart ClarkStuart Rupert Clark is an Australian International cricketer who plays domestic cricket for the New South Wales Blues. He plays as a right-arm fast-medium bowler...
and
Mitchell JohnsonMitchell Guy Johnson is an Australian cricketer. He is a left-arm fast bowler and left-handed batsman. He was awarded the International Cricket Council's 2009 "Cricketer of the Year" award, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.-Career:...
, but had dropped to being 25th-best ODI bowler, according to the
ICCThe International Cricket Council is the international governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from England, Australia and South Africa, renamed the International Cricket Conference in 1965, and took up its current name in 1989.The...
rankings.
On 20 January 2007 Ntini dislodged Mohammed Sami to take his 300th test wicket, in his 74th test.
On 1 August 2008 he removed England opener
Alastair CookAlastair Nathan Cook, MBE is an English international cricket player. He is a left-handed opening batsman who plays county cricket for Essex and International cricket for England, where he is their ODI captain. Cook played for Essex's Academy and made his debut for the first XI in 2003...
to claim his 350th test wicket in his 90th test.
On 17 December 2009 he played his 100th Test, becoming the only black South African cricketer to reach that mark. However, after already having lost his place in the ODI side, he was dropped from the Test side after poor performances against England.
Ntini retired from all forms of international cricket on 9 January 2011, in a
T20Twenty20 is a form of cricket, originally introduced in England for professional inter-county competition by the England and Wales Cricket Board , in 2003. A Twenty20 game involves two teams, each has a single innings, batting for a maximum of 20 overs. Twenty20 cricket is also known as T20 cricket...
against India.
Controversy
His career looked like coming to an early end in 1999 when Ntini was charged and then convicted of rape—though he was finally acquitted.
The case caused widespread controversy in South Africa with his conviction generating negative publicity in view of his status as the first black South African Test cricketer. Ntini maintained his innocence, was acquitted on appeal and successfully rebuilt his international cricket career. Ntini thanked Cricket South Africa for sticking by him.