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 str ...

er, who played domestic cricket for the

Cape Cobras The Six Gun Grill Cape Cobras are a franchise cricket team representing the Western Province, Boland, and South Western Districts areas in South African domestic cricket. The team's home venues are Newlands Cricket Ground, Cape Town, Boland ...

. He has played two Test matches, 26 One Day Internationals and twelve

Twenty20 International A Twenty20 International (T20I) is a form of cricket, played between two of the international members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), in which each team faces a maximum of twenty overs. The matches have top-class status and are the ...

s as an

all-rounder An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. Although all bowlers must bat and quite a handful of batsmen do bowl occasionally, most players are skilled in only one of the two disciplines and are consi ...

Cricketing career

Ontong began his first-class career with Boland, making his debut in February 1998 against

Natal NATAL or Natal may refer to: Places * Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, a city in Brazil * Natal, South Africa (disambiguation), a region in South Africa ** Natalia Republic, a former country (1839–1843) ** Colony of Natal, a former British colony ( ...

Paarl Paarl (; Afrikaans: ; derived from ''Parel'', meaning "pearl" in Dutch) is a town with 112,045 inhabitants in the Western Cape province of South Africa. It is the third-oldest city and European settlement in the Republic of South Africa (after ...

. He toured

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

with the South Africa under-19 team in February 1999, and then

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

with the South Africa Academy later that year. He played for a South African Invitation XI against the touring

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

team in January 2000, and was a member of the South Africa A squad that went to the

West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greate ...

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 Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, 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 Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and ...

in September 2001, before being selected for the tour of Australia that followed. Left out of the first two Test matches, he was then thrust into the limelight by being selected for the Sydney Test amid much controversy. After the selectors chose

Jacques Rudolph Jacobus Andries "Jacques" Rudolph (born 4 May 1981) is a former South African cricketer who played for Glamorgan and in South Africa with Titans. He attended Afrikaanse Hoër Seunskool, a popular and renowned public school located in Pretoria ...

ahead of him, they were overruled by

Percy Sonn Percival Henry Frederick Sonn (25 September 1949 - 27 May 2007) was a South African lawyer and cricket administrator. Sonn became the sixth president of the International Cricket Council, the most senior role at cricket's world governing body, i ...

, then president of the UCB. Sonn insisted that Ontong, a

Cape Coloured Cape Coloureds () are a South African ethnic group consisted primarily of persons of mixed race and Khoisan descent. Although Coloureds form a minority group within South Africa, they are the predominant population group in the Western Cape ...

, 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 Limited overs cricket, also known as one-day cricket or white ball cricket, is a version of the sport of cricket in which a match is generally completed in one day. There are a number of formats, including List A cricket (8-hour games), Twenty ...

, but has made just one further Test appearance, against

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Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

in 2004. He returned his best bowling figures of 4/66 against

Border Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders c ...

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 The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult ...

franchise, and played for them for four seasons, before joining the

as captain 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 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single inn ...

and 50-over side against New Zealand, at the expense of the experienced

Graeme Smith Graeme Craig Smith (born 1 February 1981) is a South African cricket commentator and former cricketer who played for South Africa in all formats. In 2003, he was appointed captain of the national team, taking over from Shaun Pollock. He held t ...

.Justin Ontong recalled to limited-overs squads
ESPNCricinfo. Retrieved 25 January 2012 In August 2017, he was named in Stellenbosch Monarchs' squad for the first season of the

T20 Global League 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 ...

. However, in October 2017,

Cricket South Africa Cricket South Africa (CSA) is the governing body for both professional and amateur cricket in South Africa. In 1991, the separate South African Cricket Union and the South African Cricket Board merged to form the United Cricket Board of South Afr ...

initially postponed the tournament until November 2018, with it being cancelled soon after.

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