Saturday, 20th January 2007 at 4:42 pm

300 and counting

20 players had done it before him, but he celebrated as though he was the first, pulling his shirt over his head to reveal a t-shirt with ‘300′ scrawled on in large, celebratory figures, a tribute to Test wicket number 300 on day two of the second Test in Port Elizabeth (Mohammed Sami caught by Mark Boucher off an inside edge, for the record). And why not: after all, Makhaya Ntini’s story is one of sport’s more extraordinary. He’s been headlining the South African attack for so long that his background tends to fade away, but this is a man who grew up as a barefoot cattle herder in the Eastern Cape, not a noted foundation for world-class fast bowlers. A little wild at first, he’s now established as one of modern cricket’s finer seamers, and the 300 milestone only underlines that. And given that he still prefers to run to the ground rather than take the team bus, and has quite astonishing stamina, there’ll be many more milestones to come yet from Makhaya Ntini.