After all these years, finally, Allan Donald has admitted that South African teams in the recent past became intimidated by Australian opponents – especially by Shane Warne – due to the overtly aggressive nature of their game-plan.
Donald, who is currently working as Australia’s bowling coach during the current Test and limited-overs tour of Sri Lanka, used to lead South Africa’s fast bowling department at a time when the two nations regularly faced each other for world cricket supremacy.
But despite enriched with so much talent since regaining Test and ODI status in the early 1990s following the dismantling of the apartheid regime, South Africa have consistently failed to achieve victory in cut-throat finals at high-octane limited-overs tournaments.
They have made it to the semi-final or quarter-final stages of all but across the seven ICC World Cups they have featured in since 1992, South Africa remains alongside Zimbabwe and Bangladesh as the only Test-playing nations never to have reached a World Cup Final.
On two of those occasions – in England in 1999 and eight years after in West Indies – they were bundled out at the semi-final stage by eventual champions Australia. Most famous was the tied semi-final at Edgbaston in 1999 when Donald was run out in the final over with just one run required for victory.
And the 49-year-old South African thinks that despite numerous similarities in the two countries’ cricketing culture, there were times when South Africa couldn’t hold on their nerves in front of arch-rivals’ unrelenting on-field combativeness.
“It’s very close, I don’t think both teams ever stood back for each other,” Donald told in an interview with cricket.com.au when asked whether the similarities in the way the two teams approach the game had played any part in his new job with his one-time foes.
“I think Australia have been more aggressive just in their nature, and I think sometimes we (South Africa) have succumbed to that aggression a little bit in terms of being intimidated.
“A certain bloke by the name of Shane Warne and a few others I could mention, but especially ‘Warney’ was instrumental in that sort of intimidation factor.
“And the same with (former Australia captain) Steve Waugh – he didn’t say much but he got the best out of his players by doing so.
“I’ve always enjoyed the way that Australia have played their cricket and the way they give it a crack at all costs.
“Sometimes that over-the-top aggressiveness has cost them a game or two, but that’s the way they play and I love that sort of thing.”
Donald also revealed that he was struck by the “honesty” and the frank nature of the dialogue among players and coaching staff when he attended his first team meeting in his new role as bowling coach at the Australians’ Colombo hotel last Sunday evening.
“As a player, I thought I knew the Australian cricket culture a lot better but this will give me a front-row seat of what it’s really like,” he admitted.
“For me, that team meeting (last Sunday) night was just a straight-up … the honesty and direct speaking to each other, and having fun.”
The South African admits he was also interested in taking the charge when approached earlier in the year by coach Darren Lehmann – who Donald played against at international level and also over many seasons in the UK county competition – due to Lehmann’s firm belief that the game must also be fun.