Makhaya Ntini's last hurrah
Makaya Ntini, the first black South African to play cricket for South Africa, has retired as a genuine national hero
Four overs, no maidens, no wickets, 46 runs. They are a sorry looking set of figures. Given that it was a Twenty20 match and India won by 21 runs you could even say they cost the match, especially as the second of those overs went for 20, and was the most expensive bowled all day. But then Makhaya Ntini was always about more than just the numbers. There was only one that ever really mattered: one. Ntini was the first black South African to play cricket for South Africa. After 90 years of segregation and discrimination, he was the first man across the Rubicon.
In his final press conference Ntini said that while he would have liked to have beaten Shaun Pollock's record for most Test wickets by a South African, his favourite moment of his career was his first match. 101 and 390 – the number of Test matches he played and wickets he took – well, those were just more numbers. "For each and every cricketer, if you want to play for your country, the first highlight is getting the cap, the green-and-gold cap. That for me stands out. Whatever I might have achieved after that, my aim was to wear that green-and-gold cap."
If you're looking for a statistic from his final international appearance that tells you something about his contribution to South African cricket you need to scan the small print at the bottom of the scorecard where they tell you the attendance. The crowd at the Moses Mabhida Stadium was the largest ever to gather to watch a cricket match in Africa. It was 47,000 strong, and yet none of them cared a great deal about the result. It was almost an exhibition game, staged in a stadium built for the World Cup and sold as both a tribute to Sachin Tendulkar and a celebration of 150years of Indian immigration to South Africa. But most were there to cheer Ntini, a pioneer whose achievements mean as much to his own people as Tendulkar's do to his. Ntini has been around so long, and become such a fixture of international sport, that it is easy to forget his roots. Not that he has ever been guilty of doing that.
Ntini's penultimate delivery was slapped over mid-wicket for six by Suresh Raina, an insulting smear-slog of a shot. As ever, Ntini turned and ran back to his mark. Never mind the runs conceded, the crowd rose to their feet and roared him in to the crease, falling silent only as he leapt into that quirky, kinked, delivery stride of his. That sideways movement is ingrained into his action, a relic of his schoolboy days when the new set of spikes he was given by his first coach would cause sparks to fly as his feet pounded down on the concrete wickets in King William's Town.
That was two decades ago. Not long beforehand Ntini had been earning his keep as a goat herd in the village of Mdingi, keeping his feet warm on the cold nights, he says, by standing in cow pats. In Ntini's village cricket you got a four if you hit a pig and a six if you struck a goat, or so the story goes. He never was much of a batsman. In 337 first class and Test innings he has never scored more than 34. But the 20-mile-round run from Mdingi into King William's Town built up reserves of stamina that would see him through 12years as a fast bowler. He was still sprinting in last Sunday, even if his bowling itself has lost all its snap, crackle and pop, his mph pace well down in the 70s.
He was first picked to play for South Africa in 1998. He was 19, and when he was told he had been selected he incredulously asked "Is this a joke? I don't believe you." Plenty of other people, with attitudes hungover from the apartheid era, felt the same thing. Almost exactly a year later he was charged with rape. His dream story took a nightmare twist.
He was innocent, and was acquitted on appeal. After 20 months out he came back into the team in 2000. Over the course of the last decade he has made himself a genuine national hero, and one worthy of the name — unlike a couple of others the Proteas have produced since they returned to international cricket. He is one of the most popular players in the sport. And for a time too, around 2006, he was one of the very best fast bowlers in the world. But we should cut short the hagiography there. "I don't want to be remembered as a person who did A, B, C, D," he said last week. "All I want to be remembered as is Makhaya Ntini, who played for South Africa. A guy who always cheered the boys up."
After he had finished his final innings – an undefeated one – he leapt on the back of a golf buggy and took a lap around the ground, waving to the rapturous crowd. He stopped to make a short speech to the crowd – "I would like to take this opportunity to say to each and every one of you, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your support" – in which, as he promised, he did not shed a tear ("Crying?" he had scoffed in his pre-match press conference. "I am not a baby.") And then he disappeared down the tunnel one last time in a blaze of ticker tape. In retirement he plans to start a cricket academy near Mdingi. Whatever lessons he passes on, none will be as important as the one he has been hammering home for the last ten years – that the colour of your skin has nothing to do with it.
