English crowds will miss out on the thrill of watching Dale Steyn snake in to bowl this summer but in Kagiso Rabada, Russell Domingo, the South Africa coach, believes his side possess a strike bowler for whom similar modern greatness is possible.
Rabada turns 22 on Thursday and yet his cricketing CV is already one pointing in this direction, having spent the two and a half years since his Proteas debut in late 2014 claiming 150 international wickets across all formats as the fast bowling cognoscenti purr about an easy, athletic action and batsmen trudge off with an accepting nod of the head.
In Test cricket the highlights reel from his 71 wickets in 17 caps includes 13 against England in Centurion last year, while Australia woke up to his charms during the 2-1 series defeat at home in November when Rabada picked up 15 victims as Faf du Plessis’s side induced a hefty – if all too brief – spell of antipodean soul-searching.
One-day cricket kicks off the South African tour of England and a three-match series starting at Headingley on Wednesday that leads into the Champions Trophy. This, too, is a format Rabada has enjoyed in his early career, with his 57 wickets at 25 runs apiece the most by any quick since the last World Cup and including a hat-trick on debut against Bangladesh in a six-wicket haul. Little wonder, then, that with Steyn out of the entire trip through injury and Kyle Abbott having defected to Hampshire at the start of the year, the head coach views the 6ft 2in right-armer from Johannesburg as his key man this summer.
“He could be as good as Steyn,” said Domingo, whose side take on Northamptonshire on Sunday in their second warm-up fixture of the tour. “He’s a fantastic prospect for us and we’re expecting really big things from him this tour. He’s got pace and he’s got a wonderful head on his shoulders, with a great outlook on life.
“If he takes his shirt off you can see why he doesn’t get too many injuries – he’s an unbelievable athlete. We have to manage it because he’s a fantastic bowler who plays all formats for us and we have to be careful how we play him because he’s a special cricketer.”
Michael Holding has spent some time passing on advice in an informal capacity and the West Indies great insists the man team-mates call “KG” must not be overburdened at such a young age, but this repeated warning has only ever related to workload – he wants Rabada to be a shock, not stock bowler – rather than hype.
