Allan Donald is one of the greatest South Africa fast bowlers of all time and he was called White Lightning as he was so fast that the batters could not see his balls. Allan Donald was a hero to so many young fast bowlers from South Africa who looked up to him.and wanted to play for South Africa. He was the batters worst nightmare and he picked wickets so often that it was scary. All of the nations that he played against were victims of his fur years and years. We will look at the records of Allan Donald below.
Allan Donald played international cricket for South Africa from 1991-2003 and in those 12 years he ruled the world. He played 72 Test Matches for South Africa and in those Matches he picked up 330 Wickets at a very good average of 22.25. He got 20 Five wicket hauls in test cricket as well as 3 times he has 10 wickets in a test match. He also played 164 ODIs for South Africa and he got 272 wickets at an average of 21.78 with 2 Five wicket hauls in ODIs. Let’s see the Top 5 Best Performances of this great.
5/55 and 7/84 vs India (1992)
This was his fourth test match and he produced a performance that was one of the best of that time and this performance established him.as one of the best in the world. To pick 12 wickets against a quality side at such a young time was extraordinary. In the first innings he got 5 Wickets for 55 runs in 27 overs of fast bowling and he was perfect with his line and lengths. Then came the third Innings of the match and he bowled 28 great overs of fast bowling and took 7 wickets for 84 runs and won the match for South Africa by 9 wickets. This was the match where he got his first 2 Five wicket hauls in his career.
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5/74 vs England (1994)
This next performance was away from home and it came at Lord’s against England and he was at his devastating best and in the first batting innings for England he bowled 19.3 overs and took 5 wickets and got his name on the honors board. He was simply sensational in this match and it was due to his bowling effort that South Africa were able to beat England by 396 runs in this match. Allan Donald was quickly becoming a bowler that no batter wanted to face while playing South Africa.
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8/71 vs Zimbabwe (1995)
This is the career best bowling performance in the career of Allan Donald and it came against the best Zimbabwe team there ever was. He was at the peak of his bowling and this 8 wicket haul came in the second batting innings for Zimbabwe. In that innings only he was the one who looked like taking wickets and if he had not got these 8 wickets for 71 runs in 33 overs then anything could have happened. In the end South Africa won this match by 7 wickets. It was an exhibition of fast bowling.
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6/53 and 5/74 vs England (1999)
The fourth performance in this list is against England but in 1999 and in this match he got a total of 11 wickets. England were batting first and he just came at them and just kept picking up wickets at regular intervals and never allowed the score to get out of reach and he bowled 15 overs for 53 runs and got 6 Wickets. Then in the Third innings of the match he again got 5 Wickets of the English batting line-up in 23 overs of bowling. He never minded bowling as many overs as his team needed to win the match and as a result of his outstanding spell South Africa won this match by an innings and 21 runs.
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6/23 vs Kenya (1996)
This is the best ODI bowling performance in the career of Allan Donald and it came against a very good Kenya team who were one of the best in the world. Kenya were chasing a big total of 306 and Allan Donald just ripped apart the batting line-up and got 6 Wickets for just 23 runs in 9 overs of hostile fast bowling and the Kenya team had no chance of chasing this total and they lost this match by a whopping 202 Runs and Allan Donald was the hero for the win.
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