Allan Anthony Donald (born 20 October 1966) is a South African former cricketer who is also the former bowling coach of Bangladesh national cricket team. Often nicknamed 'White Lightning' due to his quick bowling, he is considered one of the South Africa national cricket team's greatest pace bowlers of all time. He was an integral member of the South African team in its resurgence into international cricket since readmission and played an influential role as a frontline genuine seam bowler to boost South Africa to new heights. During his playing career, he was known for his bowling speed and aggression on the field. He is also remembered for his infamous runout during South Africa's loss in the 1999 World Cup semi-final match against Australia. Donald is the first South African to take 300 Test wickets.
Donald was one of the top fast bowlers in Test cricket, reaching the top of the ICC Test rankings in 1998, peaking with a ranking of 895 points the next year. In One Day Internationals (ODIs), he reached 794 points in 1998, ranked second behind teammate Shaun Pollock. He shared the new ball with Pollock from the 1996/1997 tour of India until his retirement in 2002. Donald is known for his friendship with Pollock especially when they used to be regular bowling partners for South Africa. Donald described Pollock as South Africa's Glenn McGrath. He featured in four World Cup tournaments for South Africa in 1992, 1996, 1999 and 2003.
During his playing career, he was well known for applying zinc cream on his cheeks and nose to avoid the effects of sunburn. Donald was one of 10 South African cricketers to make their test debuts during their one-off test tour to the West Indies in 1992. He was part of South Africa's first ODI team as well as South Africa's first World Cup team. He had picked up a total of 38 wickets across the four World Cup tournaments he played and is currently the second all-time leading wicket taker for South Africa in World Cups, after Imran Tahir.
Since retiring Donald has been a coach with a number of teams, including international teams. From 2018 to 2019 he was the Assistant Coach at Kent County Cricket Club in England. In 2019, Donald was inducted into the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame.
Donald played cricket, football and rugby as a child and completed his primary education at the Technical High School.
He once took 9/16 against his uncle's school Grey College in Bloemfontein and made it to the Orange Free State team in 1984. However, he injured his groin and could not take part further before reaching the standards required to play at first-class level. He subsequently missed out the opportunity to play on the Nuffield Week and also missed out on an opportunity of potentially being picked for South African schools cricket team. But, he still managed to be picked as a twelfth man for South Africa Schools XI in 1984 and 1985. He had to wait one more year following the injury to make his first-class debut in 1985.
In November 1985, he made his first-class debut in the Currie Cup playing for Orange Free State against the Transvaal cricket team at the age of 19 and was included for the match at the last minute as an injury replacement to Corrie van Zyl who injured his foot badly prior to the match. He was originally supposed to be the twelfth man of the team during the match but was called upon by his captain Chris Broad just ten minutes before the toss. He managed to pick up just the sole wicket of Jimmy Cook on his first-class debut at Transvaal, Johannesburg.
He became an integral member of the Warwickshire County Cricket Club and was a mainstay of the club for several years. He played an important part in helping the club to win the 1989 NatWest Bank Trophy by picking up 14 wickets in the tournament, the most by any bowler in that tournament. The club released Tony Merrick following the end of 1989 season which paved the way for Donald to become a regular fixture in the team. However, his county career was clouded with confusions yet again as Warwickshire signed Australian batsman Tom Moody for the 1990 season. Largely, to his relief, the club persisted with Donald by handing him a long-term contract commencing from the 1991 season, despite the consistent performances from Moody in the county championships. He repaid the faith nearly helping Warwickshire to win the 1991 County Championship with his bowling prowess capturing 83 wickets at 19.68 as he was behind only Pakistan's Waqar Younis in terms of the bowling averages during that championship.
He was a crucial member of the team which claimed two trophies including the 1995 NatWest Trophy and 1995 County Championship in a single English season in 1995. He also picked up a tally of 89 wickets in 1995 for the club. He was the joint highest wicket taker during the 1995 NatWest Trophy picking up 11 scalps along with Anil Kumble. Interestingly, Warwickshire had initially told Donald that the 1995 season would be his last with the club in order to recruit West Indian veteran Brian Lara. However, Lara pulled out for personal reasons and as a result Donald was handed a further two-year contract with the club. His long association with the Warwickshire club which dates back to 1987 was finally ended in 2000 with both Donald and the club mutually agreeing to part ways. He later joined Worcestershire County Cricket Club for the 2002 season.
He made his T20 debut for Eagles against Dolphins at the 2004 Standard Bank Pro20 Series.
He made his ODI and international debut for South Africa against India on 10 November 1991 at Eden Gardens, Kolkata which also turned out to be South Africa's comeback return to international cricket after serving years long ban from international cricket due to apartheid. It was also South Africa's very first One Day International appearance as well as South Africa's first competitive international match in 22 years and Donald was the second cap of the South African ODI team. He picked up a five-wicket haul on his ODI debut including the priced wickets of Ravi Shastri, Sachin Tendulkar, Navjot Singh Sidhu and despite his heroics with the ball, South Africa lost the match by three wickets. His fifer also gave a glimmer of hope for Proteas as South Africa gave good fightback against a strong Indian batting line-up in its attempt to defend a meagre total of 177. His bowling spell of 5/29 in 8.4 overs stood as the best bowling performance by a South African bowler on ODI debut for 24 years and the record was later surpassed by Kagiso Rabada who returned with the bowling figures of 6/16 against Bangladesh on his ODI debut in 2015. He became the first South African bowler to take a fifer on ODI debut as well as the first South African to take a five-wicket haul for South Africa in ODI history.
He was included in South African squad for the 1992 Cricket World Cup which also marked South Africa's maiden appearance in a World Cup tournament. On 26 February 1992, he featured in South Africa's first World Cup match which was against Australia and starred with the ball in the first match of South Africa during the 1992 World Cup. He picked up 13 wickets in 1992 World Cup (the most for South Africa during the 1992 World Cup) at an average of 25.3 and at an economy rate of 4.21.
He made his test debut on 18 April 1992 at the age of 26 against the West Indies in the one-off test tour to the West Indies at Barbados, a test match which also marked the historic occasion of being South Africa's first test in nearly 22 years since their readmission. The test match also marked South Africa's first test match against a non-white nation as it was also their first test ever against the West Indies. On his debut he scored a pair including a 21 ball duck in the first innings. However, he shined with the ball on his test debut picking up six wickets (2–67 and 4–77) for the match inclusive of a four-wicket haul in the second innings. He also picked up the priced wicket of Brian Lara. However, West Indies managed to win the one-off test by 52 runs to take the series 1–0.