Allan Donald

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Allan Donald : biography

20 October 1966 –

Allan Anthony Donald (born 20 October 1966) 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 25th best ranking ever. In ODIs, he reached 794 points in 1998, second place to his teammate Shaun Pollock, the 28th best ranking ever. In the early 1990s, he was arguably the only world-class bowler in the South African team, until the emergence of Pollock, with whom he made a healthy new-ball partnership from the 1996/1997 tour of India until his retirement in 2002.

He made his Test debut on 18 April 1992 in South Africa’s first test since their return to world sport after the abolition of apartheid. South Africa lost to the West Indies in Barbados by 52 runs, but Donald took 2–67 and 4–77, including the prized wicket of Brian Lara.

Known as ‘White Lightning’, he is remembered as a fearsome fast bowler, scowling and aggressive, with a circular white area of zinc cream across his cheeks and nose. When he retired, he was South Africa’s record wicket-taker with 330 Test wickets at an average of 22.25, and claimed 272 One Day International wickets at an average of 21.78. Both of these records have now been overtaken by Shaun Pollock.

Notable Incidents

1992 Cricket World Cup

South Africa’s first game in the 1992 Cricket World Cup was against Australia. From his first ball, Donald got a noticeable edge off Geoff Marsh to the keeper, but the umpire Brian Aldridge didn’t give the decision.

1997 racism allegations

In 1997 he came under intense scrutiny from the international cricket media after he was alleged to have used racially abusive language against India’s Rahul Dravid in the finals of a one-day series. Allan Donald mentioned this incident in his autobiography, White Lightning:

"in the middle of a noisy, partisan atmosphere, with the final in the balance, …I got involved in an incident that has since caused me a lot of grief, leading to accusations that I am a racist.

"I was really pumped by the time Tendulkar and Dravid came together, but they soon got after me. Tendulkar pulled me for a flat six over midwicket, a wonderful shot…but when Dravid smashed me for six and four, I got carried away in typical fast bowler’s fashion. I walked right up to him, face to face, and snarled, ‘This isn’t such a fucking easy game’ and the TV cameras had me in close-up, with everyone lip-reading my words. Dravid’s eyes lit up when he saw me standing so close, and the Durban crowd absolutely loved it."

He continues:

"In the end, they [The Indians] folded, we won the Final after looking out of it, and I thought no more about it, to me it was just a high-octane period of a match that we desperately wanted to win, and we did because we had the bottle to do so. Straight afterwards, I went to Dravid and told him my words weren’t meant to be personal, that it was all in the heat of the moment, it should stay out in the middle and shouldn’t be a problem between us. He gave me a hard look, and left it at that. I thought no more of it."

1998 Test Match at Trent Bridge

Donald had a now famous duel with the English batsman Mike Atherton during the Trent Bridge Test Match of 1998. This duel has since gone down as one of the most electrifying and intense periods of Test match cricket in history.

South Africa batted first, scoring 374 in their first innings. England responded with 336, Donald taking 5 wickets, giving South Africa a slender lead of 38 runs. In their second innings, South Africa were undone by the English bowling attack, scoring 208, with Angus Fraser taking five wickets. This left England with a target of 247 to win the match. Note that England had not successfully chased down a target this big in the 4th innings at home to win a match since 1902.

The final innings of the game began on the fourth day, 12 overs before tea. Butcher scored 22 before falling to Shaun Pollock with the score at 40–1, and Atherton was joined by Nasser Hussain. Hussain and Atherton comfortably negotiated the other bowlers, Elworthy, Cronje and Kallis, and Pollock was unable to follow up on his earlier success.