“Poetry and murder lived in him together,” the late RC Robertson-Glasgow, a cricket writer and Somerset fast bowler, once wrote about Sir Donald Bradman. If the Scot is still watching from the Elysian Fields, he would use the same words for Dale Steyn.
As the South African glides to the crease, he brings poetry to a fearsome art – and then murder follows, with the ball pitching and snaking past tentative bats. At other times they could be headed for the helmet or the rib cage.
“There is nobody better,” the South African pace great Allan Donald told ESPN Cricinfo last year. “To me, he’s a racehorse. He’s got the most beautiful run-up, just glides in. He’s a bit like Michael Holding in a sense; maybe not as graceful, but not far away. He has a fantastic action.”
To put it simply, he is a natural athlete, tireless and supremely fit, enjoying a career that probably looked a distant dream as he grew up in the small mining town of Phalaborwa, where bass fishing and skateboarding competed with cricket for his time. The son of a miner, Steyn did not have money enough to buy shoes when he was first picked for South Africa in 2004. His senior teammate Shaun Pollock helped out.
“When I fly from Johannesburg to Cape Town and look down at my country, it’s amazing to think, ‘out of all the people to bowl fast for South Africa, they picked me’,” he has said. “People might say you’re destined for great things. But when you’re in a small town, what are the chances?”
The chances came, but it did not look like Steyn would grab them. He failed to make an impression in his first three Tests and was dropped. In 2005, during a trip to Australia, he was hammered for 58 runs in five overs in a one-day international in Melbourne.
“He got absolutely butchered in an ODI in Australia – ‘traumatised’ may not be too strong a word,” said Richard Pybus, the former Pakistan coach who has worked closely with Steyn. “He came back from that experience and I remember him saying to me, ‘that is never going to happen again’. Firm and defiant.”
That defiance is evident every time Steyn steams in to bowl – on a freezing morning in London or a scorching afternoon in Sharjah. He has also bowled more than a few memorable spells in the IPL.
In 2012, he produced two of the finest examples of fast bowling seen in the tournament – both against the Mumbai Indians.
That same year, he dashed Bangalore’s hopes of reaching the last four with three for eight from his four overs.
Last year, he helped carry the Sunrisers Hyderabad into the semi-finals. His team did not have a batsman among the top-25 run scorers of 2013, but Steyn, supported by the leg-spinner Amit Mishra, defended some modest scores, while knocking out teams for low scores.
“I love the buzz of bowling fast,” Steyn once said. “Yes, I do get a thrill from it.”
A similar feeling for many watching him in the stands, or at home, as he glides in to unleash those thunderbolts.
aizvi@thenational.ae
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