Ntini, 20, would be the first player from the townships development programme launched 11 years ago - before the country's readmittance to international sport - to make this breakthrough. He toured England and India with the national under-19 side and went to Australia this winter, playing one one-day international.
Like President Mandela, Ntini is a Xhosa. Other non-whites of mixed descent have played for South Africa and one, spinner Paul Adams, is also expected to be in the side, but Ntini would be the first black African.
When his father died, Ntini's mother struggled to bring up seven children on her maid's income. At 14 the boy discovered cricket when a travelling development clinic came to his village.
The game in South Africa is currently enveloped in much soul-searching about how to maintain its quality without being seen by disadvantaged people as still an white-dominated sport.
Grassroots movements - some Asian, some from the townships - are demanding ``affirmative action'' (positive discrimination) to push more non-whites into the first class game at provincial and Test level.
They are resisted by the traditional lobby - administrators, ex-players - who oppose any move to give blacks preference over whites except on strict merit. In recent weeks the issue has surfaced in many forms. A United Cricket Board disciplinary hearing is considering complaints of racist verbal abuse towards young Indian spectators against Pat Symcox and Fanie de Villiers and fitness trainer Paddy Upton during the Durban Test against Pakistan.
A leading school sports body says players ``of colour'' are not getting a chance because provincial selectors are ``white-dominated'' and during the Port Elizabeth Test a local group handed in a 1,000-name petition to the board protesting about the non-selection of blacks at Test level.
The pressure led Hansie Cronje to issue a statement in the middle of the game pledging the support of himself and his players to a South African side truly representative of all people.
Caught in the crossfire are men such as Ali Bacher, managing director of the United Cricket Board, who said emphatically: ``In 1998 an all-white South African cricket team has got to be counter-productive and could wipe out all the good work that has been done.''
He added that, while the issue of selection on merit was ``a difficult dilemma'', they had to go the road of affirmative action. There was no other way.
Bacher said that where there were two players of equal merit one black and one white - he expected provincial selectors to go for the black candidate.
``We have got to go that last step, where people can see tangible evidence that the development programme is producing results.''
Much progress has been made. In the townships the cricket board are committed to laying down 600 cement cricket strips. Integration is coming along well at all youth levels, but at provincial level there has been no sustainable breakthrough and that could have a knock-on effect at Test level.
Those who oppose the idea of affirmative action point to the pressure this will place on an individual player chosen partly because of colour.
They resent too the idea that cricket should be used as a ball to be batted around by politicians, fearing that the Test selectors will come under pressure to consider affirmative action.
Evidence of tension already exists, with the retirement of de Villiers and the broad hint dropped by Symcox that he might do the same. Although in their 30s, both players are producing their best results, yet have been aware that their places in the team might be in jeopardy because of contending pressure from non-whites.
If Ntini wins his first Test cap other than on pure merit, this could be dangerously divisive. There are already mutterings that the coach Bob Woolmer is too ready to choose Anglo South African at the expense of Afrikaner.
Bacher remarked: ``This is still not a normal society. We have made enormous strides. Now we have to go that one step further and embrace the whole nation.''
A heavy thunderstorm forced the abandonment of Pakistan's opening match of their Zimbabwe tour, a 50-overs game against a Matabeleland Select team in Bulawayo yesterday.
Pakistan, who were stopping over in Zimbabwe for two Tests after their South Africa tour, reached 118 for five after 25.5 overs when rain and heavy gusts of wind ended play.
After Rashid Latif, Pakistan's captain, had won the toss, the openers Ali Naqvi and Mohamed Wasim put on 47 for the first wicket in 10 overs, but the fall of Wasim's wicket in the 10th over to Bryan Strang, the Zimbabwe Test seamer, led to five wickets tumbling for 59 runs against a Matabeleland side containing five current Test players.
Ashad Ahmed Aziz, Pakistan's manager, confirmed that the fast bowlers Shoaib Aktar and Fazal-e-Akbar faced disciplinary action.
Reports in South African papers suggested the two players attended a late night party in Port Elizabeth during the third Test against South Africa, in which Pakistan were outplayed earlier this week.
Pakistan's first Test against Zimbabwe begins in Bulawayo tomorrow, with another following in Harare.