by Arunabha Sengupta
He was discovered by chance, as a 15-year-old barefoot cowherd, with an extraordinary enthusiasm for bowling.
It was the Border Cricket Board development officer Raymond Booi who spotted him. 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.
Booi introduced him to Greg Hayes, the head of Border’s mini cricket development programme, and they placed him in a junior cricket festival in Queenstown. Hayes bought him his first pair of boots. He had to be instructed not to wear them indoors or when herding cattle.
In 1998, Makhaya Ntini became the first ethnically black cricketer to play Test cricket for South Africa.
There had been brilliant men like Ben Malamba, Frank Roro, Khaya Majola, Eric Majola and others whose incredible performances had never seen the light of the cricket world blessed by ICC. Their deeds had been swallowed by the abyss of apartheid.
One coloured man had slipped through. Buck Llewellyn who played 15 Tests between 1895 and 1912.
After that it had been Omar Henry, Paul Adams …coloured cricketers.
But no Black man.
Makhaya Ntini managed to cross that barrier when he made his debut against Sri Lanka at Cape Town in 1998.
Just before the start of the 2003 World Cup, Nelson Mandela met the South African team led by Shaun Pollock. He had a special word for every player. He knew all of them.
After he had been introduced to everyone, Mandela circled back to Makhaya Ntini. He took him aside.
“You must go back to your village and tell the young people that you are a star,” he said.
Ntini did not consider himself a regular in the team. He did not think he was a star. But Mandela reassured him. “You represent many millions of people, and it is important they know what you have done.”
Later Ntini said, “Every time I wasn’t performing at my best after that, I would think of what Tata Madiba had said. Most of the time, I was the only black man in the side, and he made me feel proud of that. He made me aware of my responsibility—that’s why he told me to go back to the village and tell people that everything was possible, that they could make their dreams come true.”
It was Mandela’s words that made Ntini carry the shield of his people as he stood next to Pollock at the World Cup opening ceremony. “It was an important symbol. Madiba said I should carry the shield for as long as I could.”
A few years later Ntini visited Mandela at his house in Houghton with a couple of the senior players. They had a cup of coffee. Again, Mandela told him to remember to go back to the village and encourage everyone else. “The whole country is looking up to you to set an example.”
Ntini later remembered; “He used words like ‘leader’ and‘responsibility’, but he said them in a way that made me feel it was an honour, not something daunting.”
Set an example he did. For his people.
For the ones who had been killed mercilessly for several centuries.
The ones who made up 80% of South African population but till very recently had had to live in about 7% of the country’s allocated land.
The ones who till very recently had had to carry passes to enter the white localities.
The ones who had been denied standard education to ensure they continued on their deprived road towards legislature-powered White utopia of segregation and separate Bantustans.
The ones with no access to even the very basic of facilities let alone sporting.
The ones who could see cricket only from separate enclosures for them known as the cage.
The ones without any rudimentary human rights until very recently.
He was the first man among his people to play Test cricket. He ended up playing 101 Test matches.
Ntini captured 390 wickets at 28.82. Only the third South African bowler to capture 300 wickets after Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock.
In the ODIs he took 266.
Set an example he did. And Nelson Mandela did follow his entire career.
Makhaya Ntini was born on 6 July 1977.