Scyld Berry: NatWest Trophy: Donald ready for payback (31 August 1997)

Sunday 31 August 1997

NatWest Trophy: Donald ready for payback

By Scyld Berry

ESSEX will have in Stuart Law the classiest batsman on either side in the NatWest Trophy final. Warwickshire will have the leading strike-bowler in Allan Donald, and the greater depth of batting, thanks to their four allrounders, and the greater depth of seam bowling, which is sure to be significant as the summer weather has already broken. Conditions will have to be stacked in favour of Essex - not impossible at 10.30am on Sept 6 - if Warwickshire are to be denied their third NatWest Trophy in five years and their seventh title in that time.

Donald started at Edgbaston 10 years ago, which makes him the longest-serving of overseas players if Courtney Walsh should not return to Gloucestershire. Warwickshire have preferred him to Tom Moody, and Donald has been loyal and grateful, even when they did prefer Brian Lara. For his county he gives as much as for his country, in the Procter-Marshall mould of overseas player.

The fast bowler of the summer has been Glenn McGrath, who has taken 155 wickets in 34 Tests at 23.4. Donald has taken 155 wickets in 33 Tests at 23.3. If McGrath was the outstanding performer in the Ashes series, Donald is likely to be the same next summer when South Africa make their first five-Test tour since 1960. He was the Player of the Series when England toured South Africa two winters ago.

Yet England`s batsmen were not altogether impressed. Before the series began, they privately suspected that Donald lacked heart. It turned out that what he lacked was self-confidence. He is not an old boy of the private schools which in apartheid years produced the majority of South Africa`s Test cricketers.

Like his South African captain, Hansie Cronje, Donald was brought up in Bloemfontein, but unlike Cronje and half of the Orange Free State side he did not attend Grey`s College. Donald`s father worked in the post office; his mother, Afrikaans and vivacious, was athletic herself until disease set in. While his parents spoke English, Don- ald`s first language was the Afrikaans of his grandparents when they initially looked after him.

The lack of confidence used to show in one-day matches for South Africa if Donald was hit in his first couple of overs with the new ball. The cure was to keep him back as first change, and Warwickshire now do the same, letting Dougie Brown open with Graeme Welch, keeping the experience and control of Donald and Gladstone Small for mid-innings.

Donald still bowls from wide of the crease, as a loose foothold forced him to do a couple of years back. Otherwise he is straight in everything he does for the county. He passed 500 first-class wickets for them during this week`s trouncing of Essex, who are on the opposite of a roll. A benefit could await if he returns in 1999.

Warwickshire`s only difficulty was whether to select Andy Moles or Nick Knight to partner Neil Smith, who is more than a pinchhitting opener (what Australia do today and England tomorrow in appointing a separate captain for one-day cricket, Warwickshire have already done this season). It was resolved when Moles ruptured an Achilles tendon against Essex, leaving Knight, like the all-rounder Brown, to hope the NatWest final will sway the England selectors like it used to.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)