Donald's duel with Atherton set to rumble

Centurion South Africa fast bowler Allan Donald, whose duel with England opening batsman Mike Atherton is seen as the first flash point of the looming Test series, has to come through two crucial fitness tests during the next 48 hours if he is to play at the Wanderers on Thursday.

As a British betting organisation offers odds on the pending Donald-Atherton clash, the South African fast bowler had a ``satisfactory workout'' at the Wanderers yesterday to test the niggling rib injury which flared during the second Test of the Zimbabwe series in Harare.

Donalds side strain has become the most examined part of any of the South African players anatomy when the squad arrived in their Johannesburg hotel yesterday and spent most of the afternoon relaxing and walking around a Sandton complex.

Rested from last weekends SuperSport Series game between Free State and Natal because of worry about the niggling side strain Donald spent some time with the South African physio Craig Smith but as team management confirmed much depends on his fitness. He had felt no discomfort from the light Wanderers session yesterday.

With Jacques Kallis already ruled out as bowler for the first two Tests of the series against England, the Donald-Shaun Pollock duo are seen crucial to South Africas cause.

It is Donald, however, who the British media and bookmakers are focusing their attention and his duel with Atherton has already claimed headlines in British tabloids. A sports spread betting company Sporting Index, has put up prices for the final Donald v Atherton clash of the century.

After the war of words at Trent Bridge last year and Donalds fiery bowling at the unflinching England opener at Leeds in the fifth match which decided the series, eye-catching odds measured by a points system have already received much support after the England XI won two of their three first-class games before the Wanderers Test opens the five-match series on Thursday.

A bouncer delivered by Donald to Atherton and signalled by an umpire is worth three points; a ball hitting Atherton above the waist is worth five points. A Donald delivery which hits Athertons helmet is worth 25 points and Donald taking the batsmans wicket is worth a further 20 points.

There is a 20 points bonus if Athers is out caught by either hooking or pulling. It is serious too as the offer is for the first Test only and has drawn several millions of pounds although the company had their fingers scorched when their assessment of wides and no balls cost them more than £2-million during the World Cup with one gambler collecting £100 000 for a £100 bet.

On another, less profitable note, SABCs main English service programme, SAFM, continues their blunderbuss style of reporting on the looming Test series by shooting off both feet with old news flashes. Two days after the announcement that Kallis would be unable to bowl in the first two Tests they make it their main item on the 6.30 pm sports news. Then and 24 hours after England XI beat the combined Northerns/Gauteng side we hear part of the Nasser Hussain interview made at a media conference at SuperSport Park in Centurion.

The SABC make out as if Hussain has just made the comments yet no one from national broadcaster was present at the conference when it was made; they had decided to skip the match on the Saturday and Sunday, making brief references to the game through the medium of an outside news agency service.

What can be expected though when they all but ignored (not for the first time) the announcement of the South African side for the first Test and the comments from Rushdie Majiet, the selection convener, that Hansie Cronje would captain the side until after the Sharjah tournament in April.

It seems the national broadcaster, highly miffed at being passed over for the British Talk Radio for the series are still in a tiff with the United Cricket Board at the way Test Match Special was pushed aside. A large section of the general public were clamouring for ball by ball commentary during the first Test against Zimbabwe in Bloemfontein, and it came as a cultural shock there was a large audience fed up with the daily diet of muddied oafs hogging the airwaves. Like the ostrich on some Karoo farm the SABC had buried its head in the turf roughed up by rugby scrums and soccer goalmouth skirmishes and hoped the problem will disappear. It has refused to go away.

If their daily bouts of dyspepsia over how to blunder around the summer season is a guide the public, already used to incompetency emerging from broadcast house, are likely to be in for a lot more and lengthy silences during Test matches. Not everyone can afford a television set.