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 | |  Monday, 25 February, 2002, 14:05 GMT Lightning strikes for final time  Donald took 330 Test wickets for South Africa BBC Sport Online's Martin Gough looks back over the Test career of South African fast bowler Allan Donald. Allan Donald left the Wanderers field on Friday evening, visibly upset, with his arm around the shoulders of physio Craig Smith. He had torn his hamstring. He bowled just 15.2 overs in the Test, taking one wicket, before he broke down. And though he bravely came out to bat at number 11 with a runner, he announced his retirement on Monday - a day after his side were trounced by the Aussies in Johannesburg. It is not the first time that White Lightning has announced his withdrawl from the game - there was a temporary sabbatical to conclude his 13-year county career with Warwickshire in 2000.
But the selectors, and South African eminence gris Ali Bacher, persuaded him back for the two-leg Test series against Australia. Donald's fiercely competitive nature prevented him from refusing one last shot at his arch-enemies, but it proved a series too far. Still struggling with the stomach muscle injury that had prevented him playing against Zimbabwe and India at the beginning of the season, he managed just four wickets in Australia. The wicket of Justin Langer, lbw in the 12th over of the opening home Test proved to be the last in the career of the fearsome fast bowler. Formidable opponent Donald almost single-handedly led his country out of sporting isolation to its current position as a major power in world cricket. He burst onto the international stage in 1991, taking five wickets in South Africa's first one-day international, against India in Calcutta.
He proved a formidable opponent in Test cricket, glowering like a pantomime villain if a bowler enjoyed even the slightest luck against him. A key reason behind his return to Australia this season was a grudge nursed against Mark Waugh for the 115 not out made to draw the 1997/98 Adelaide Test after, Donald said, Waugh had knocked his stumps off with his hand. And few witnesses will forget the sheer venom that filled the atmosphere on a Sunday evening at Trent Bridge in 1998, when Michael Atherton apparently nicked behind but refused to walk, and was subjected to a vicious display of short, fast bowling. "Elsewhere parishioners were making their way peacefully to Sunday evensong," recalls Peter Baxter in his book Cricket's Greatest Battles. "But inside the walls of Trent Bridge a war was being fought between a furious tornado from Bloemfontein and a laconic, cussed Lancastrian. No onlooker could take his eyes off the raw-boned contest." Old school Donald took his revenge at the Wanderers in 1999/2000, removing Atherton in his first over with a yorker that ducked in from way outside off-stump. But he believed his finest delivery accounted for Sachin Tendulkar, a similar delivery at Durban in 1996/97. In true style, Donald saved his best for the world's finest.
For a leading player in the modern game his values were old school, forged in county cricket with Warwickshire, where he arrived as a raw-boned 21-year-old in 1987. Even if you have threatened the life of a particularly lucky batsman during the course of the day, Donald reasoned, there was no reason why you should not share a beer with him afterwards. Birmingham may have been his adopted home for the South African winter, but it was in the town of his birth, Bloemfontein, where he passed the career milestone of 300 Test wickets, against New Zealand in November 2000. He had wondered in the approach to 300 whether he would be sufficient motivation to continue once it had been achieved. But his appetite for the biggest battles, against the greatest players, kept him coming back for as long as he could. | |
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