One of the major recipes of South Africa's spectacular consistency in winning games in both Test cricket and ODIs was the potency of their pace batteries which were among the best of their generation. For most of the 90s and the early 2000s, the Proteas had arguably the deadliest seam attacks spearheaded by the legendary pacer Allan Donald.
While 'White Lightning' was menacing quick in his prime to send shivers down batsmen's spine, he had the perfect foil in Shaun Pollock, who was one of the greatest exponents of seam and swing bowling. Pollock with his immaculate line and control over seam was indeed a wily customer with the red cherry. It dint stop with just Donald and Pollock.
There was Fannie De Villiers, who hurled rocket like yorkers with his javelin-throwing low slinging action. Not to forget his well crafted slower ball which deceived the best of batsmen. Such were the exploits of the Donald-Pollock pair that this generation may have forgotten Craig Matthews, Meryck Pringle and Richard Snell, who all were great bowlers in their own merit. Last but not the least, we can’t ignore Brain McMillan and their skipper Hansie Cronje were very handy medium pacers who bowled well within their strengths.
It was a sight watching the Proteas pace attack run through the defences of the strongest batting attacks both on home conditions and while touring abroad. When Donald faded away, Pollock led the attack and developed a great fast bowling pair with Makhaya Ntini.
A bull-like built with stamina a plenty, Ntini was a superlative athlete who bowled tireless spells to win matches for South Africa. Backing the frontline seamers was arguably the greatest seam all-rounder in Jacques Kallis, who could seam the ball both ways and that too at pretty decent pace. They also had Lance 'Zullu' Klusener who began as a tear away speedster but eventually settled into a military medium pacer mastering the art of changing the pace with his deliveries.
The Proteas had seam bowling riches a plenty with one day specialists in the form of Charles Langeveldt Steve Elworthy and Roger Telemachus who always chipped in with wickets whenever called upon national duty.
With the turn of the millennium, a change of guard happened with Dale Steyn becoming the leader of the fast bowling pack. Hailed as the greatest seamer of his generation, Steyn had it all in his armoury to be an outright match winner. He was fortunate to have a handy bowling partner in the tall and lanky Morne Morkel who extracted bounce from even docile tracks.
Lonwabo Tsotsobe was another seamer who was deadly in seam friendly conditions back home in South Africa. As in the past, they had medium pacers in Andrew Hall and Justin Kemp who donned the role of the third seamer to perfection.
South African cricket is undergoing a massive transition and so is their pace attack. While the ageing Dale Steyn could announce his retirement from white ball cricket anytime soon, the heir apparent is none other than Kagiso Rabada.
Rabada has a massive responsibility of carrying forward a glorious legacy of South Africa’s seam bowling and keeping the flag flying high. The tear away speedster has shown immense potential with the red cherry and is already hailed as one of the best among the current crop of seamers. Lungi Ngidi is another bright prospect who can scale great heights if handled with care. There are some real raw talents in Anrich Nortje and Dwaine Pretorius whose skills need to be fine tuned.
If handled with care, the Proteas have the armoury to once again become a world class seam attack and wreck havoc among the best of batting lineups.