South African cricket legend Makhaya Ntini learned to play barefoot before being talent spotted and handed a pair of boots, and he knows about bowling on a bumpy pitch. Now he says he faces his "hardest test": playing the world's highest game of cricket near the summit of Kilimanjaro, Africa's tallest mountain at 5,895 metres (19,341 feet). Once a herder in a rural area of the Eastern Cape, Ntini was the first black African to represent South Africa at cricket, making his debut in 1997.
"It is going to be like going back to the old days, playing a game in the dust in the rural areas, when you didn't care where you played because you were just crazy for the game," Ntini said, who played 101 Test matches and took 390 Test wickets.
"That will be the greatest of things," he said, speaking on the mountain, already high above the cloud level. The 37-year-old fast bowler is part of an expedition of 30 players -- mainly amateurs and enthusiasts, but also some professional players, including English spin bowler Ashley Giles -- scaling the giant peak for the eccentric charity match. Those facing the formidable bowler may be alarmed to hear that balls reportedly go far faster at higher altitude.
But Ntini laughs, saying his otherwise dangerous delivery may this time be a little slower. "It won't be my usual bowling. We'll be playing in so many clothes with the cold, and then there are the heavy boots," Ntini told AFP, during the eight-day expedition up the flanks of Kilimanjaro.
"I'll be taking six paces and that'll be it, in the thin air. I wish I was 20 years old again, it is the hardest test!" he added. Teams, who set off trekking early Saturday, aim to reach the peak at dawn on Friday. They then aim to play a full Twenty20 in the crater of the dormant volcano, laying down a plastic track -- hauled up by Tanzanian porters -- for the wicket, and playing in freezing air, surrounded by vast blocks of ice.
