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Dale Steyn - Why?

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
Me and my brother have been having an arguement about whether Dale Steyn was correctly picked by him as a future star (he signalled Steyn as a talent after his first Test series against England) or moreso a wrong pick by him which happened to come to fruition through improvements by Dale Steyn through having a good bowling coach at South Africa and being exposed to a lot of clever people at Essex.

Were Dale Steyn's improvements since his first Tests against England to be expected as an obvious talent grew and matured or was this an improvement to the extent that in 99% of cases, it would not have occured?

What are your vews?
 

DaRick

State Vice-Captain
Me and my brother have been having an arguement about whether Dale Steyn was correctly picked by him as a future star (he signalled Steyn as a talent after his first Test series against England) or moreso a wrong pick by him which happened to come to fruition through improvements by Dale Steyn through having a good bowling coach at South Africa and being exposed to a lot of clever people at Essex.

Were Dale Steyn's improvements since his first Tests against England to be expected as an obvious talent grew and matured or was this an improvement to the extent that in 99% of cases, it would not have occured?

What are your vews?
The bolded part sums up my opinion. I felt that he had great potential in 2004/05, disappointing and expensive though he was. Along with the ability to bowl the odd superlative ball, he also had that untold aura which seems to gravitate around those who are genuinely going to be great, distinguishing them from the pretenders. Although Shaun Tait can also bowl jaffas (and broadly speaking, tends to be erratic and expensive like Steyn, if not moreso), I did not sense the potential in Tait that I did in Steyn.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Steyn shouldn't have been picked in 2004/05, there were a large number of better options, and his being wrongly picked was one of several factors that cost South Africa that series.

However, even despite the fact he was poor many people talked of him having potential. Presumably in domestic cricket he'd bowled better than that previously. He could always swing the ball, and he was always fairly quick (though never up with the very quickest of them all). But he was very poor with his lines (less so his lengths) and his lack of height handicapped him.

I wasn't entirely sold on him myself, I've seen many cases of bowlers being that poor in early Tests and making no real improvement. If you watched those Tests only and said he had potential you were making dicey calls. However, equally if you watched those Tests only and wrote him off you were being silly. If you'd watched him bowl in other games, then you could well have been onto something. Not many people would have done that, but those who had would've had the best idea.

Since he returned to the side in 2005/06, despite still having more than the odd rough edge, he's mostly been outstanding.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
It was obvious he was going to be a gun IMO. Even when he bowled pies, they were pies that you knew would be awesome at some point.
 

Langeveldt

Soutie
To be honest I'd have dropped him after his early waywardness, and had Nel/Langeveldt as more permanent replacements.. So glad I'm not selecting the side at the moment
 

Manee

Cricketer Of The Year
It was obvious he was going to be a gun IMO. Even when he bowled pies, they were pies that you knew would be awesome at some point.
True dat, he does have that sort of mixture of zip through the air and slight swing which would make you think that but I remember that Brad Willians (could be the total wrong person I am thinking of - Australian quickie who toured India) had a similar thing and he amounted to the square root of **** all.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
To be honest I'd have dropped him after his early waywardness, and had Nel/Langeveldt as more permanent replacements.. So glad I'm not selecting the side at the moment
Well he actually was dropped after his early waywardness and then recalled when he started bowling more consistently.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
What's more, he was only picked for that England series because Nel was injured for the first four Tests of 't.

Had he been fit it'd have been so much better for Nel, SA and Steyn.
 

social

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Consistent, fast outswing = wickets

Learn to put a few per over in the right area and you'll be good

Steyn has always had the ability to bowl fast outswing

Took him 12-24 months to put it in the right areas consistently

Unfortunately, it's only taken Brett Lee 5 years to do the same
 
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