Steyn Gun: Dale Steyn's Mastery of Fast Bowling and Dominance in Test Cricket
A few days back, former South African fast bowler Dale Steyn posted a question on his social media account – The most beautiful fast bowlers' action of all time…? While conjectures may be many and varied, the question is a bit hard to answer without a proper reading of every fast-bowling action there is.
From the smooth and daunting action of the Rolls Royce, Michael Holding to the wrist-extending unorthodox tennis ball cricketer-like action of Jasprit Bumrah, the list goes on. Point to be made, for Steyn, Alan Donald’s action stands atop but his own isn’t any less of a poetry in motion either.
However, it might be difficult to interpret whose action is the most beautiful; it might not be to analyse the greatness of the action through their dominance in the longest format. Longest format because every great fast bowler in order to prove their mettle has to perform there; it takes a lot of grit and determination to bowl incessantly, especially on the uncovered pitches and bunsens that give barely anything to a fast bowler to work with and that too for hours.
The most beautiful fast bowlers action of all time…?
— Dale Steyn (@DaleSteyn62) August 25, 2024
I’ll start.
Allan Donald
While Bumrah has etched his name as one of the best all-format bowlers; with only 36 test matches under his belt, let's keep his average out of this analysis.
Now many a bowler spur in the mind, but the one that stood out for 2,343 days as the best bowler in the longest format transcends the realms of every cricketing possibility for us as well. Mind you, no other bowler has dominated the bowling sphere for such a long period; the next best being Ambrose for 1,719 days.
During this time, while camping in the minds of his opponents, he amassed 313 wickets at 22 runs apiece. This is no mean feat given it took him only seven overs to take each of these wickets. By now you must have figured out that the subject of all the reverence is none other than the South African ace Dale Steyn himself.
In total, the South African ace took 439 wickets at an average of 23 runs apiece over 93 matches.
His ability to produce that late swing at an exhilarating speed gave him the sobriquet the ‘Steyn Gun’. At the top of his game, he more often than not deceived batters leaving them perplexed and yearning for their wickets.
In fact, most of the the best test batters during his time of dominance with the bowl, had fallen to his wizardry. Between 2008-2014, Michael Clarke scored the most number of runs in test cricket, averaging 52.05. However, this average of his went down to 28.9 when facing Steyn's whippy action. Over that period, he bowed down 9 times to the South African’s snake-like gliding abilities with the ball - Steyn’s most dismissals against any batter.
The South African’s arsenal included everything from quick outswingers pitching leg and hitting off, inswingers going past unsuspecting inside edges to mean bouncers, with his deranged celebration putting the icing on the cake for him.
Coming through a crumbling cricket structure - the game’s economy in the country was starting to hugely depend upon the visiting nations - Dale made his debut against a pre-2005 Ashes English team, which was on red hot form whitewashing both West Indies and New Zealand at home. After the series win against South Africa, away, they whitewashed Bangladesh at their home and then salvaged the most famous Ashes victories of all, at home.
A shabby 21-year-old Dale had a tough time on his debut against the in-form English batters, bowling 16 no-balls in the first innings. He recuperated himself in the second innings with one of the finest deliveries by a debutant, knocking off Michael Vaughan’s off-stump - making the ball straighten enough after pitching between middle and off - but the match was all lost by then.
However, the world did get a second chance to accommodate itself to his deranged and iconic fist-pumping and veins-popping chainsaw celebration that was to come 436 times more, etching his name in the annals forever. The first instance was in the same match during the first innings when he inswinged Marcus Threscotik in the first innings.
A seasoned test bowler, Steyn like his idol, could do it on the green mambas of the SENA nations as well as the dust bowls of the subcontinent. However, Donald’s statistically better-looking career was shortened due to the isolation of South Africa by the world amid their Apartheid regimes. And so, it’s pretty difficult to analyse how much of an upper hand he could’ve had over his disciple.
"Honestly, and I am being 100 per cent, I think he is the greatest bowler for South Africa, if not the best ever, I have seen," Donald once said. "Not only is he an athlete but he is a competitor. He has got a case of white-line fever that I have never seen before. He has got everything you wish for in a fast bowler."
Even though his average in the subcontinent (Asia) wasn’t the greatest at 24.11, his strike rate (42.9) was only bettered by New Zealand Legend RJ Hadlee (42.7), marginally. Steyn is the only non-Asian seamer with five-wicket hauls in three different Asian countries - India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Steyn’s country-wise split-up is also great. In fact, the South African averaged better in India than he did in his own country, although the gap between matches played in both countries is significant. Steyn has the same number of test wickets in the subcontinent as Jimmy Andrson (92) but in 10 fewer games and with a better average and strike rate.
But how did Steyn topple the land of spinners? By mastering Reverse Swing, what Bumrah knows backwards.
Despite facing turbulence in the first few innings in the subcontinent - facing the wrath of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene’s partnership - he came out with his career-best bowling figure of 7 for 51 in Nagpur, India in 2010; one of the flattest tracks in the country became his hunting ground. Although five of the seven in that figure were the lower-order batters that he ran through during his final spell of the innings.
Steyn has the lowest average amongst non-asian pacers against the tail-enders in Asia.
Steyn once said when he visualised bowling as an 18-year-old, he wanted to run in like Brett Lee, leap like Allan Donald, bowl as quick as Shoaib and be as accurate as Shaun Pollock. The height, the action, the pace, the brain, the teammates and the control, Steyn had it all to make the ball interact with the air like no other pacer could.
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