Cricket: Sth Africa find new ace of pace

By RICHARD BOOCK

BLOEMFONTEIN - If the Duracell people are looking to replace their wind-up rabbit, South African fast bowler Makhaya Ntini is their man.

Never mind Allan Donald or Shaun Pollock, it was Ntini - the least-familiar member of the South African cricket team's feared pace attack - who was the main reason for New Zealand's failure to save the first test at Bloemfontein yesterday.

On a pitch that might have been prepared by the Friends of the Flat Earth Society, Ntini succeeded where many of his more illustrious team-mates struggled, taking his first five-wicket bag in test cricket and dragging his side to victory in the nick of time.

Had the man from Mdingi in Eastern Cape - who spent his childhood herding cattle - not come to the party when he did, ending the resistance of Brooke Walker and Adam Parore before mopping up the tail, New Zealand would have almost certainly arrived in East London today safe in the knowledge that the series was still 0-0.

As it was, their courageous fight in the second half of the test was not quite enough to compensate for their awful performance in the first half.

While Jacques Kallis took the key second-innings wicket of Craig McMillan, who battled for 266 minutes and posted 78, Ntini captured the last four to end with six for 66 in just his sixth test.

The 23-year-old right-armer has an action not unlike that of the late Malcolm Marshall, although the similarities end with his follow-through, which - to the horror of every MCC-qualified coach - has him turning in a wide circle and jogging back to his bowling mark.

The reason for this is that he apparently was a runner in his younger years, winning every distance race in sight, and has never been able to shake the habit from his system.

"My aim was to just bowl maidens and apply pressure," he said yesterday.

"I've learned a lot since the tour to England and it was a real boost to be on the field today and doing well.

"In the past I haven't actually had a lot of bowling, so it was very pleasing to get 31 overs and to take some wickets."

For New Zealand, the test will be remembered as much for the terminal mistakes made on the first three days as the desperate bid to repair the damage and escape with a draw.

And while the inexperienced bowling attack will doubtless accept a measure of culpability for this, the top-order batting was the big disappointment in the first innings, when an overly venturesome approach saw New Zealand dismissed for a match-deciding 229.

The second-innings salvage operation was led by McMillan, Stephen Fleming, Mark Richardson and Walker, and it would have taken just another hour's batting to push the South Africans' target from 101 to something far more difficult in the time remaining.

But in the end the hosts were able to reach the target shortly after tea, although they lost five wickets in the process, with Daryl Tuffey dismissing his first three batsmen in test cricket.

Fleming, whose dismissal one short of his century late on the fourth day proved another pivotal point of the game, said the inability to sustain the initiative against South Africa during the past month was proving a frustration for all concerned.

"We get to the advantage line, but with the experience we're missing we haven't been able to press on.

"It's something that used to dog us in the past, but which we've made real gains on during the past 12 months, and I just wonder whether we haven't slipped back a bit with the new guys."