By: BCCI
Dale Steyn has played 19 Test matches in the subcontinent. And he has taken 90 wickets at 22.33 with five five-wicket hauls. Despite having played all his cricket on the pacy, bouncy South African pitches, this man has mastered the art of bowling on the slow and flat Asian wickets.
As Dale Steyn embarks on his third Test series in India – he has played five matches here with 19 wickets – he has revealed the secret of his success on the surfaces that are often described as a fast bowler’s nightmare.
“Pace here throughout the day is very important with the wickets being on the slower side,” he said ahead of the first Test in Mohali. “Anything below 135 kph and the batsmen are able to make the adjustment when the ball hits the deck. Against the guys that bowl 145-plus, it really rushes the batsmen and it gives them a little less time to adjust when the ball is reversing or there is something off the deck. One of the few things I have done here is bowl fast. But control is another thing. You have to land the new ball in the right area.”
One of the biggest challenges that teams from the west face in India is the heat and the humidity. For the fast bowlers the conditions seem to be harsher. Dale Steyn admits to the exertions that come with running in all day in hot weather on unfriendly pitches. But for him there is an up-side to it.
“I love bowling here because the grounds are quite flat. In South Africa you’ve got this massive table where it feels like you are running uphill, whereas here, you feel like you are on a tartan track, you’re running flat,” he said.
“Here you don’t have that extra leg workout; you almost feel like you are running downhill all day long. Even when the wickets are not offering you much in terms of pace and bounce, your run-up always feels smooth and the ball tends to always come out nicely. So, you are able to just push on all the time. It is difficult but that’s my job. I want to bowl faster in the late afternoon than I bowled in the morning. That’s just how I have gone about my business from the time I started playing cricket. Hopefully that will continue.”
In what is a rare instance with a South African squad, they have three spinners in their rank for this Test series. While the slower bowlers are expected to play a crucial role on turning wickets, Steyn still believes that the Proteas will rely heavily on their pace battery.
“Everyone has a job to do. In the past when we came here, we had a guy like Paul Harris. He fitted in and he did his job. If he did that, the fast bowlers could rotate around him, we could all function as a unit and get the 20 wickets we needed,” Dale Steyn recalled.
“We have something similar going on right now. We have a few spinners who do turn the ball more than Harris and who have got more skills. Immy (Imran Tahir) bowls googlies, flippers and leggies. We have got bowlers who are more of a strike force than Harro. But everybody fits into this team somewhere as a unit. If we all do our job properly collectively, we’d probably get the 20 wickets we are after. But we do rely heavily on our quicks,”
As for his own bowling form, Steyn said playing the ODIs before the Test matches has helped him get into the rhythm. “I do tend to bowl a lot better when I have had some bowling under my belt. I have often gone into a first Test a little bit under-cooked when I have had a break before the series. But as the series goes on, I tend to get better and better. I am not saying that I am going to take 10 wickets in the first Test, but I do feel very good and prepared right now,” he said.
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