Ntini's grass-root ambitions

Makhaya Ntini's international career is now officially at an end, but his sights are set firmly on the future. In September he took the decisive step towards launching a cricket academy under his own name in the Eastern Cape, and a man who has become a sporting icon and symbol for hope in his homeland will leave an indelible mark on the community that nurtured his earliest humble beginnings as a cricketer.

The sod has been turned at the site that will eventually become the Makhaya Ntini Cricket Academy at Willows Cricket Club in Mdantsane, a township just outside East London. Fittingly, it is not far from Ntini's home village of Mdingi, where he spent his early boyhood herding cattle before his talent was discovered. The region, which continues to bear the burden of decades of neglect under apartheid, has also been home to some of the most influential figures in South African history - Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu, Steve Biko, and Nelson Mandela were born here - and if Ntini's vision is fully realised, the academy could well change the landscape of South African cricket.

"Without a doubt my own roots have had a massive influence on what I'm doing," he told ESPNcricinfo. "It is part of my duty as this is where I came from as well. I want to make sure that even if I'm not there anymore, not playing for South Africa, that there's something that I can give back to the people of South Africa and try to go out there and look for the best cricketers for the future. I owe that to the people. I cannot just disappear and not use my experience to guide the youngsters and give them a taste of what life is all about when you become a cricket star."

A state-of-the-art facility is planned, and will provide aspiring cricketers from the surrounding region with all the necessary opportunities to develop their skills. As well as an indoor grass wicket and three artificial turf nets, which could also be used to accommodate indoor cricket, soccer and netball, the facilities will include a fully-equipped gym, computer centre, conferencing facilities, accommodation for visiting coaches and some of the best cricket coaching facilities in the country.

"A friend of mine at Old Mutual asked me what I would like to leave behind as a legacy, so I said to her it would be very nice if I could build an academy for the kids. It's all getting started now. We've drawn up the plans and done lots of investigation to get the land and get the plans right. That's all on track, which is good. We're going to start building next year. It might take about eight months so before next Christmas we should be done."

Talent will be drawn from the surrounding regions of the Eastern Cape, and Ntini envisions cricketers coming to the academy from as far away as Umtata in the East, Aliwal North near the border with the Free State and Port Elizabeth in the West and a fully-integrated programme that involves local schools. An elite squad of 20, aged 19 to 24, will train full-time at the academy and will also help professional coaches in the training of younger cricketers of school-going age.

"We've looked around the scenario of the Eastern Cape being one of the biggest black communities that, with regard to cricket, does not have any great facilities," he explained. "The youngsters only play cricket at school, and then after that there's nothing. So whatever we do we're going to combine it with the local schools, so the schools have an opportunity to use the facilities, to bring their teams in and come and enjoy and be coached by people who've done it before and can help the cricketers in the Eastern Cape."

The Eastern Cape was created out of the former Xhosa homelands of the Transkei and Ciskei in 1994, and though it has benefited from significant development since then, poverty levels remain some of the highest in South Africa, with children bearing the brunt of the hardship. With few opportunities and little hope for the future in the many sprawling 'locations' - another hangover from the old regime - social problems such as teenage pregnancies, substance abuse and crime are rife. These ills have not escaped Ntini's attention, and his academy will aim to cater for those who would otherwise never have the opportunity to make the most of their sporting talent.

"The whole thing I'm trying to build here is that I want the kids to come in and enjoy the facilities for free. I never paid when I started my cricket career, so why would I want to do that to others? This academy is not about your dad paying a lot of money to get you in, no. It's about anyone, even the poorest, getting the opportunity to achieve something if they are talented. It's about making sure that those that never had a chance to show others how talented they are get that chance. Now is the time to make that happen."

The South Africa in which Ntini grew up has been replaced by a multi-racial democracy with every reason to hope for a better future. But that is not to say that every inequality has been erased, and he has been outspoken on the issue of the transformation of South African cricket to more accurately reflect the make-up of the country. The existing structure to identify black cricketers in the country's rural areas is not yielding the desired results, argues Ntini, and that is another problem he is hoping the academy might help to rectify.

"For me, this is just what I believe in and it's just a way to move forward and get it right," he said. "Now there won't be an issue of saying 'where are we going to find young black cricketers?' We don't want to hear about that anymore, that transformation is very slow. Now it's time that all of that gets put aside and we start working on a different point of view."

Ntini has a dream, and he certainly isn't afraid paint that dream on the largest possible canvas even as he fights to turn it into a reality. Having been part of the Proteas set-up for over a decade, and having turned out more recently for Chennai Super Kings in the internationally-flavoured Indian Premier League, he has established friendships with cricketers around the world and hopes that a few of the big names will add some glitter and world-class quality to his project.

"I've spoken to Murali, I've spoken to Tendulkar, to Dhoni," he said, the excitement clearly audible in his voice. "Those are the people that I think will bring the whole international understanding of what I'm trying to achieve in South Africa. They've all said to me that they're only a call away. I've spoken to Courtney Walsh, to Ian Bishop. Those guys understand all about fast bowling. If you're talking about spin, who better to help than Murali, who has taken 800 Test wickets? It's something that I looked at when the academy was getting started, just to get any of them - Brian Lara or whoever is not busy at the time - to come and help out. It's amazing, because nothing like this has ever happened in South Africa. It's really, really exciting.

"I want the academy to be recognised world-wide. Exchange students could come here and experience the South African soil, and some of my students might love to go and experience Ireland, or England, or even Zimbabwe. I want to have as much communication and friendship with other countries around the world as possible. We'd love to have people coming over here from India to show our kids how to bowl spin, and someone from India might also want to come to South Africa and learn how to play fast bowling on bouncy wickets. The friendship that we can create between countries will be unbelievable."

But while Ntini's enthusiasm for the project is seemingly boundless, there remains a lingering fear that his grand ambition might never be realised, that the academy might never be built. It had initially been launched in 2008, but a lack of funding and players' busy schedules meant it never got off the ground. This time, he has stronger financial backing but is still some distance off the R15 million needed to complete the project.

"I'm excited but at the same time worried. The worry that I have is that this is something that we all talk about but the time to get to the point where we actually start doing something is very, very slow. That's why I'm so worried, wondering if this thing will actually take off. I'm just waiting and crossing my fingers. We just need to get the sponsorship and keep this happening. I can't wait to see this project up and running.

"There was something that really broke my heart the other day when I went to do some coaching with the Warriors, actually in one of the townships that is going to benefit from this academy. When I got there I was so depressed to see the facilities that were being used. The poor communities are so far behind the stage of being equal with the schools that surround them in East London.

"So that's why I'm pleading to each and every person, whoever could say with a sincere heart 'let's build this thing and show what we can do for the black people'. This academy is not for me, it's for the black people, the poor people, and even more so, honestly, for the whole of South Africa. We need to bind together and make this thing happen."

Ntini's final appearance for his country came against England in Durban last December, but he had long since been established as a hero in his homeland. If his vision is fully realised his name may well be mentioned one day in the same breath as Sisulu, Tambo and Mandela as one of the most beloved sons of the Eastern Cape soil.