Justin Lee Ontong (born 4 January 1980) is a former South African
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
er, who played domestic cricket for the
Cape Cobras. He has played two
Test matches Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to:
* Test cricket
* Test match (indoor cricket)
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...
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One Day International
A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...
s and twelve
Twenty20 Internationals as an
all-rounder.
Cricketing career
Ontong began his
first-class career with
Boland, making his debut in February 1998 against
Natal in
Paarl.
He toured
Pakistan with the South Africa under-19 team in February 1999, and then
Ireland and
Scotland with the South Africa Academy later that year. He played for a South African Invitation XI against the touring
England team in January 2000, and was a member of the South Africa A squad that went to the
West Indies in August and September 2000.
His first elevation to the full South African squad came with the tour of the West Indies in early 2001, where his quiet demeanour earned him the nickname "Rowdy" from his teammates. He made his international debut in the first ODI in
Jamaica, scoring 11 at number nine and bowling five overs. He went on to play in six of the seven matches in the series, but recorded just 13 runs and two wickets in total.
He played a further One Day International in
Zimbabwe in September 2001, before being selected for the tour of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
that followed. Left out of the first two Test matches, he was then thrust into the limelight by being selected for the
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
Test amid much controversy. After the selectors chose
Jacques Rudolph ahead of him, they were overruled by
Percy Sonn, then president of the
UCB. Sonn insisted that Ontong, a
Cape Coloured, play instead of Rudolph as part of South Africa's racial quota policy, and Ontong duly made his Test debut at the SCG. He scored 9 and 32 in a heavy defeat.
Ontong has continued to play intermittently for South Africa in
one-day cricket, but has made just one further Test appearance, against
India in
Kolkata in 2004.
He returned his best bowling figures of 4/66 against
Border in 2002–03, and compiled his highest first-class score of 166 against
Eastern Province the following season.
In 2004–05, Ontong moved to the newly formed
Lions franchise, and played for them for four seasons, before joining the
Cape Cobras as
captain
Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...
in September 2008.
Following brilliant form for Cape Cobras in the 2011–12 season, he got a national call-up to South Africa's
Twenty20 and 50-over side against New Zealand, at the expense of the experienced
Graeme Smith.
Justin Ontong recalled to limited-overs squads
ESPNCricinfo. Retrieved 25 January 2012
In August 2017, he was named in Stellenbosch Monarchs
The Mzansi Super League (MSL) was a Twenty20 cricket (T20) franchise league held in South Africa. The competition was established in 2018 by Cricket South Africa (CSA) as a replacement for the failed T20 Global League, but only two editions wer ...
' squad for the first season of the T20 Global League.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ontong, Justin
1980 births
Living people
Cricketers from Paarl
Cape Coloureds
ACA African XI One Day International cricketers
Boland cricketers
Lions cricketers
Cape Cobras cricketers
South Africa One Day International cricketers
South Africa Test cricketers
South Africa Twenty20 International cricketers
Alumni of Paarl Gimnasium
South African cricketers
Barbados Royals cricketers