Gliding to the wicket with feline grace, head still, ears pinned back, this is a fearsome predator, forever lurking in wait for victims. He has devoured 225 Test batsmen so far. The height (6ft 3in), the speed (average 88mph), the stamina, and the control make him the most precious asset in the game. He has an intimidating arsenal of snorters, cutters, swingers, and yorkers, some so fast the batsman has only 0.4 sec to react to them. Glancing back while taking guard to see the keeper standing 25 yards distant is just the beginning of the ordeal. When the force is with him a man has to dig deep into his soul to pull through.
Trent Bridge tamed him for a while yesterday, blunting his sting, the ball refusing to spit up or dart about as it has done in other matches. Still he posed questions and eventually got results. With 21 wickets in the series, he is the difference between the teams. No pitch strategy is entirely safe with him around. His extra potency on a featherbed may be decisive, something green or damp will have an essentially modest chap licking his lips in anticipation. At least his action is so grooved and fluent you can see the ball clearly out of his hand. Dealing with it using a flimsy stick of wood is entirely another matter.
Donald issued a serious gale warning within a week of arriving in English cricket. Playing his second match for Warwickshire in April 1987 he bowled Graham Gooch for a pair and shattered two of Paul Prichard's fingers with an accidental beamer. It precipitated a miserable summer for Gooch and sidelined Prichard for four months. Steel pins held his hand together for two years.
Then the floppy haired Donald was raw, wild, but already very quick. Mornantau Hayward, the young South African tearaway on this current tour, is a recognisable reminder of how Donald used to look. Unkempt and wiry, he hurtles to the crease, practically overbalancing as he explodes into the delivery. The resulting Exocet arrives at a random height often sprayed some way wide of the stumps.
Donald, from Bloemfontein, was similarly wayward when he first played for Orange Free State. Chris Broad captained that side: ``He ran to the wicket and let it go as fast as he could, usually very full. He was rapid but his line was all over the place. When he got it straight he was lethal. You could see immediately he was something special.''
With strong South African links, Warwickshire heard of his potential and hired him in 1987, but it was only Bob Woolmer's arrival as coach at Edgbaston four years later that really began his metamorphasis from occasional assassin to serial killer. At the crease fast bowlers are coiled springs, a speedy release is more a function of rhythm and timing than brute force. Woolmer, a shrewd bowling analyst, realised Donald's inconsistencies stemmed from his run-up.
He monitored it to the millisecond and worked out the optimum speed to get him properly balanced at the crease. Before county matches you would see him charging up and down on a practice wicket while Woolmer stood by with a stop watch. He found he bowled his quickest spells when he was cruising rather than charging to the crease. The spring needs time to unwind. Gradually he learnt that fast bowling was appliance of science, that with proper finesse he could vastly improve his productivity.
He is meticulous in his means. On this tour he takes videos of the day's play back to the hotel to study the pace of his run-up, foot positions, the angle of the seam at delivery, batsmen's stances, how they coped with particular balls. He has read books on the subject, talked to the greats, Dennis Lillee and Malcolm Marshall among them.
WITH the help of a fitness expert he has developed an intricate repertoire of stretching exercises - back rolls, side extensions, splits and crunches - that would torture a ballet dancer. He does them morning and evening without fail and it is the main reason for his perennial fitness. Remarkably, considering the stress he puts on his body, he has missed only five Tests (out of 51) since South Africa were readmitted in 1992. By comparison, England's best strike bowler, Darren Gough, has been unfit for 24 Tests in the last three years.
Its not in our sporting culture to try too hard. County players loosen up every morning but it is purely routine, apathy often rules. There's more attention on what happened in Tiffany's last night than what to do on the pitch that morning. Donald was so incensed by this attitude during his year as Warwickshire's coach and fitness trainer, on one occasion he threatened to pack his bags if they didn't do their warm-ups seriously.
Donald's exercise programme is the key to his prowess. ``I concentrate on the vulnerable areas - the back, the inter- costals [side], the groin and hamstrings. I've inherited my suppleness from my mother, a netballer, who can still get her palms flat on the floor without bending her knees after a double hip relacement. But without my 15 minutes of proper stretching at least twice a day I wouldn't have maintained my flexibility. I'm very interested in biomechanics and I'd like to go into it when I've finished playing.''
With so many physical assets, Donald could remain a serious strike force for some time. Married to a Birmingham girl, he plans to make his home here, and should then be employed on the pitch and in the lab creating a real English demon. The ECB can spin on all they like about the health and vitality of the domestic game, but in their hearts they know there is no substitute for genuine pace.