Nortje ripped through the heart of the home batting, taking three wickets in 10 balls at one point, as England slumped to 149 all out in their second innings to lose the Test inside three days.
Nortje’s average speed in the over where he dismissed the dangerous Jonny Bairstow was 148 kph, making it the quickest over England have had to face at home in the last decade of test cricket, according to the analytics website CricViz. "It's exciting, something I've wanted to do since I was a kid," Nortje told a news conference. "It's hard work, you have to get yourself up.
Sometimes you think you've bowled the right ball and it just goes to the boundary and then you have your captain saying 'It's a good ball, keep going, keep going'.
That helped me at stages as well. But yeah, it's a nice feeling." Nortje, 28, admitted he does sneak a look at the board display for the speed gun, measuring the pace of bowlers' deliveries, to see what pace he is generating. "I do, I do, but it's not a focus to be trying to go quicker or slow or whatever.