'Different fire in the belly': Allan Donald reveals Australia as opponents brings the best out of Kagiso Rabada originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- South Africa legend Allan Donald says Kagiso Rabada raises his level specifically against Australia.
- Rabada missed the Durban opener with a hamstring injury and returned to take 15 wickets across the last two Tests.
- Rabada took his 350th Test wicket at Newlands, the fastest to the mark by balls bowled in Test history.
Kagiso Rabada has built his career on raising his level for the biggest occasions, and one opponent brings it out more reliably than any other. Allan Donald, who held South Africa's new ball for a decade before him, has no doubt which one.
In an exclusive interview with the Hindustan Times, the former fast bowler, now bowling coach of SA20 side Joburg Super Kings, said the change is visible from the moment Rabada takes the field.
"I think there's a different fire in the belly that burns when KG plays for South Africa against Australia. It can be Australia; it can be England. There is definitely a difference when KG walks on the field," Donald said. He was careful not to frame it as something unique to his generation or this one, having felt the same thing himself.
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"I've experienced it too. You just never want to leave or let your teammates, family, or country down," he said. "But I think KG takes it a step higher than anybody else." Donald's wider point was about how much South Africa missed him when he was unavailable and how quickly that changed when he came back.
The former Proteas pacer continued, "In that first Test, you just felt KG's absence. When he came back in Cape Town, the intensity lifted. He's just one of those players. You leave a Shane Warne or a Glenn McGrath out of an Australian team, and that leaves a hole." What struck him most was the speed Rabada found in the decider.
"The amount of venom that he bowled with in that second innings," he said. "His pace was up at 145 to 148." He also pushed back on the idea that Rabada is nearing the end at 31, having seen him in rehab at SuperSport Park. "He already has 350 wickets and still looks like a spring chicken. Not many realise that he's a big man. Six foot three and a half, four. Just an amazing athlete. And his passion to beat Australia absolutely showed."
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How Rabada's return turned the series aroundThe absence Donald refers to was genuine. Rabada had not played competitive cricket since May, having picked up a hamstring injury in training in August, and he missed the Durban opener that Australia won by 214 runs.
He returned at St George's Park and took six wickets as South Africa won by an innings and 31 runs to level the series, a ground where he had taken 11 in a match against the same opponents in 2018 after another defeat in Durban.
At Newlands, he was quiet in the first innings, taking one wicket, before settling the series inside four overs on the final morning. Matt Renshaw fell off the first ball, caught down the leg side by Ryan Rickelton, Marnus Labuschagne was lbw for four in the same over, and Travis Head drove at a full ball outside off on the last delivery of the seventh over to be caught at gully by Marco Jansen.
That was Rabada's 350th Test wicket, reached in his 75th match and in 13,808 deliveries, which is 911 fewer than Dale Steyn needed and the fastest anyone has got there. He is the fourth South African to the mark after Steyn, Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini. Australia were 60 for 7 at lunch, all out for 111, and South Africa won by 176 runs to take the series 2-1.
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Three wickets for 39 is not a spell that normally gets talked about, and the raw numbers from the series are modest by Rabada's standards. What Donald is describing is not volume but timing, and the two Tests South Africa won were the two he played. The pace figure is the detail worth holding on to.
A bowler eight months out of the game, in his 75th Test, hitting 145 to 148 on the fifth morning of a series decider is not someone managing a workload. It is someone who found another gear because of who was at the other end.
South Africa have five more Tests before any World Test Championship final, two against Bangladesh and three against England, and Rabada's fitness is the single variable that decides how comfortable that run looks. On the evidence of Newlands, the body is holding up better than the eight-month gap suggested it would.
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