By Martin Gough BBC Sport at The Oval

Last year brought a dramatic change in the make-up of the South African bowling corps.

Ntini has gone from outsider to senior player

Makhaya Ntini, a seamer who could be as much a liability as an extra weapon, became one of the side's leading bowlers.

An attack that used to rely on Shaun Pollock and Allan Donald, with Jacques Kallis providing able support, looked for leadership to the odd man out.

During the 2002/03 season, including 22 one-day internationals, only Pollock took more wickets - and only one more at that - than the former cattle-herd from the Eastern Cape.

Throughout their woeful World Cup campaign, with Donald and Kallis both desperately out of form, Ntini was the only man his captain could rely on to keep things tight.

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In the week before his 26th birthday, Ntini's story has already progressed from the clich� of a promising player plucked from the obscurity of a village full of mud huts.

He has endured the snide winks of observers who believed - rightly at times - that he was only in the side because he tipped race quotas in the right direction.

And Ntini is now forging an unprecedented role as a veteran black African cricketer, able to pass on advice to younger members of the squad.

"We have to make sure that we contain up front then the other bowlers can follow that," Ntini says of his partnership with Pollock.

"If we can't contain, the others will be more scared because they won't know what to do."

If people judge me as a role model it's an honour Makhaya Ntini

Ntini does not just lead by on-field deed, however. Coach Eric Symonds places emphasis on senior players passing on their experience.

"[Shaun and I] see what's going wrong - some players in the team lean or bowl from behind [the crease]," he explains.

"We're the players who can say, 'If you try this way maybe you'll feel more comfortable'."

Observers, including South Africa bowling coach Corrie van Zyl, have credited an increased confidence for Ntini's increased stature.

The player himself believes the sheer amount of games he has played - 74 one-day internationals when he takes the field - has helped.

But a change in action - from a chest-on to a side-on action which renders him less injury-prone - and a change in approach combined to make last year a watershed.

ODI WICKETS IN 2002/03 Shaun Pollock 38 Makhaya Ntini 37 Allan Donald 24 Jacques Kallis 23

"I've become more of a hard worker," he admits. "They talk about [a day at] the office when you go to the nets.

"When you're in the office you deal with the work that's in front of you; you don't bother what is going on next to you.

"It's one of the greatest things that made me successful: focussing on what you've been told to do, not changing anything."

Ntini was infamously name-checked by the South African sports minister when he said he came to watch cricket for its black stars not white players.

But, while he acknowledges he may be a role model for a new demographic of cricketers, he is more focussed on keeping his place at the team top table.

"I'm just a person who plays cricket and if people judge me as a role model it's an honour.

"Since community cricket came to rural areas, everywhere you go now you see kids carrying bats, throwing balls. Even if they don't have a ball they hit stones.

"We are all going through [formerly] white schools so it is one of their major sports."

And Makhaya Ntini is their first member of the mainstream.