Dale Steyn talks to Kislaya Srivastava about the struggles of bowling on flat English pitches, the joys of winning away from home, and why Rabada and Ngidi don’t need his help.
After a long injury lay-off, and at the age of 35, for Dale Steyn to return at all was something of a surprise. For him to return right at the top of his game was entirely unexpected.
If the vein-popping aggression has diminshed somewhat, the potency certainly hasn’t. He has taken 12 wickets in the five ODIs he has played since October 2018, and finished as South Africa’s second-highest wicket-taker in the ODI series against Zimbabwe at home before finishing as the joint-highest wicket-taker against Australia away from home.
That he picked up these wickets after having missed all of South Africa’s ODIs since October 2016 – a gap of two years – shows the work that would have gone on behind the scenes while he had been nursing a shoulder injury he picked up in Australia two years ago and then again when he suffered a tissue damage in his heel that cut short his participation in the India Tests at home earlier this year.
This isn’t to say that the two aren’t curious. “They are becoming fantastic bowlers all on their own and just through being young and wanting to learn they ask questions anyway. So I don’t really have to do much.”
“We played the One-Day Cup there and we actually won it (Hampshire) and I think we made over 300 against Somerset and lost that game. We made 375 (356), they chased that down. So the wickets aren’t exactly bowler friendly,” he added.
But Steyn is ready to give it all given that it will most likely be his last World Cup. “Even Australia had played against England and England broke a world record, they scored 400 and something,” he said.
“So, you just got to adapt. You got to go there, look at the conditions, pick a side accordingly and then give it your all. That’s all that it boils down to.”
