Fourth-innings chases in Test cricket are funny. Often with the pitch having considerably flattened out, they give the illusion that the batting team is still in the hunt while chasing down an impossibly big total. Things seem to be going along smoothly when, almost against the run of play, the ball is suddenly roughed up enough to start reversing and before anyone notices, the bowling team has the ascendancy. The total that only a few overs back seemed well within reach feels impossibly far again.
When Australia was in pursuit of 448 set by South Africa at Port Elizabeth in 2014, their chase followed a similar plotline. After a 126-run opening partnership at over 4 runs an over, the Aussies perhaps had hope of achieving the impossible. But on an abrasive pitch with a rough square, a menacing spell of reverse swing was inevitable and the Australians had to keep their ambitions in check.
In the 49th over of the innings, South Africa captain Graeme Smith went back to his premier strike bowler – Dale Steyn. One of the greatest fast bowlers of all time, Steyn specialised in the art of reversing. Steyn had gone wicketless in the innings so far and his impact was negligible. That would soon change.
Australian captain Michael Clarke was facing the third ball of the over. Steyn ran in and released an in-dipper tailing in late and quick at Clarke. The ball was good enough to account for a lesser batsman but Clarke had been in this situation before and knew what he was dealing with. His defence was tight and he played with soft hands. The next one though, again swung late from an unerringly similar release and Clarke was ready with an identical defence. Except, this one swung away and took a thick edge, allowing Faf Du Plessis at the third slip to take an outstanding catch and put an end to Clarke’s visibly uncomfortable stay in the middle.
In walked Clarke’s most trusted general, Steven Smith. One of the brightest prospects in world cricket at the time, Smith needed to play the most defining knock of his career yet. Steyn could smell blood. No batsman can claim to be in control of things when a bowler as skilful as Steyn swings the ball both ways at his pace, much less a young one just walking in. The first ball Smith faced came tailing back in, beating his inside edge and thudding into his pad right in front of the middle stump. There was no point even considering a review. Smith walked back, dejected. With his exit, any remaining hope of an Australian miracle was put to bed.
At the time of this Test, Clarke was arguably the best batsman in the world. Smith in the years to come would emerge as one of the finest in Test history. It only took Steyn only two balls to reduce them to clueless novices, incapable of dealing with the hostility of high-class fast bowling. As riveting as this piece of cricket was, it was, unfortunately, the last time Steyn was seen at his absolute menacing best before the physical reality of the sport started kicked in and he was never the same again.
Steyn played Test cricket for five more years but only played in 22 matches in that period. He had to walk out of a Test and a series no fewer than four times. Every comeback resulted in either a recurrence of an existing injury or a freakish new one. By the time he made one last comeback in the summer of 2018-19 for the two series against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, he had lost that sting and his bowling was not nearly as threatening as it used to be.
At the end of that season, Steyn retired from Test cricket as South Africa’s highest wicket-taker of all time in the hope of prolonging his career for a little longer in the other formats. But the white ball stints since were few and far between and never quite matched his stature. In fact, beyond a point, it became somewhat painful to watch him get thrashed in lesser T20 leagues around the world. In a way, a retirement from all forms of cricket, therefore, feels more relieving than hurtful.
Myths and memories
Fast bowling – perhaps more so than any other facet of this sport – is celebrated through myths and memories and not so much by numbers and data. The ability to bowl fast and intimidate your opponent to the point they appear comical in their struggle to survive is an extremely rare one. And when the batsman ducks and evades and crouches and falls over while dealing with serious pace, it makes for unparalleled theatre. That’s what glues fans to the experience. Michael Holding to Brian Close, Allan Donald to Michael Atherton, Curtly Ambrose to Steve Waugh, Andrew Flintoff to Jacques Kallis – this is what the paying public lives for.
But as captivating as these compilations are, Test match bowling demands bowlers to exert supreme control over their lines and lengths on most days. These passages of play aren’t the most exciting ones and seldom make it to popular conversations that are endlessly revisited. But the only edge the greatest of fast bowlers hold over lesser ones is in their ability to consistently land the ball in those areas and forcing the batsman to commit an error.
The greatness of Steyn lay in his ability to combine consistency with hostility and emerge as arguably the most complete fast bowler in the history of Test cricket. Few could claim to be as skilful and as precise in their execution as he was. Those banana-shaped outswingers leaving the right-hander at searing pace are practically impossible to deliver without missing the length and over pitching every now and then. It’s a tradeoff between accuracy and intent for most.
But that is where Steyn was a cut above the rest. Of all bowlers with more than 300 Test wickets, no one has conceded fewer runs per wicket at a better strike rate. With the exception of another all-time great Waqar Younis, no one even comes close. To then factor in the minor little detail that Steyn produced these numbers in the largely batting-dominated era of Test cricket simply takes his achievements to stratospheric heights.
Over a four-year stretch between 2007 and 2011, Steyn took more wickets than any other bowler but managed to do so at 7 whole runs cheaper. That he was the best bowler of his era bears little repetition; just by how much still feels too ridiculous to be true.
The 1990s was a golden period in fast bowling that saw the likes of Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram, Younis, Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock play at their absolute peak. There’s a reason the period continues to be heavily romanticised in cricket writings and myth-making machines and for good reason.
But Steyn on the other had to contend with an era that was particularly unproductive for fast bowling and yet managed to make the batsmen earn their runs the hard way. It was only much later that James Anderson and Stuart Broad rose to prominence. Towards the end of Steyn’s career, another battery of world-class fast bowlers in Trent Boult, Kagiso Rabada, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins, and Jasprit Bumrah arrived on the scene and batting has suddenly become harder than it has been in a long time. Steyn would have undoubtedly made good use of this era, the way Anderson has been lately.
But if one were allowed to let romanticism slip into an otherwise strictly objective appreciation of a magnificent career, it’s the degree of aesthetic perfection in Steyn’s bowling that writes his legend way more resoundingly than any piece of stat could. And his dismissals on debut of Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan were almost reassuring prophecies of what was to follow over the next decade or so.
Somehow with Steyn, it was never just about the output. The neatness of action, the perfect release, and the signature celebration were extremely significant accompaniments to the complete experience that his bowling brought. His lethal ruthlessness was pure theatre. So many of his spells carried that air of inevitability. You could sense that premonitory despair in the batsman’s body language. Ask Mohammad Hafeez.
But the beauty of watching Steyn at times lay in his struggle too. One of his most famous on-field duels came against the greatest of them all, Sachin Tendulkar, at Cape Town in 2011. On a pitch perfectly suited to seam bowling, Steyn unleashed every bit of his repertoire but Tendulkar was equal to the task. Two of the greatest athletes of all time kept going at each other for over four sessions across two days and it made for the most enticing viewing experience anyone could ask for. Tendulkar eventually got out to Morne Morkel but seldom has an individual contest within the game been so thoroughly engaging, never mind between two peerless opponents.
The magnitude of Steyn’s greatness though is only truly realised when one sees his ability to render the pitch irrelevant and make the ball talk anywhere. Nothing illustrates this better than his performances in Asia. Among visiting fast bowlers, his record in the subcontinent is head and shoulders above any of his contemporaries and those breathtaking spells in Ahmedabad, Nagpur, and Galle attest to his dominance across conditions. He was at the forefront – quite likely the biggest reason – in building South Africa’s impregnable record away from home for a period of over eight years.
It’s a shame therefore that the same golden generation under Graeme Smith that boasted of players like Steyn, Kallis, Hashim Amla, and A.B. de Villiers among others could never win a relevant piece of silverware in white-ball cricket. Often mollycoddled to extend his Test career, Steyn’s limited-overs exploits are less appreciated than they deserve to be.
But Steyn’s defining memory will be in those unmistakable whites running in with the red cherry in his hand and making sure those facing him at least once wondered whether they’d made the most prudent of career choices. That snapped shoulder, the twisted elbow and the bruised heel meant he couldn’t remain around the game for as long as he should have been. Nowhere close in fact. We have missed out on nothing less than another 200 Test wickets.
It’s indeed quite ironic that a career as accomplished as this ends seemingly unfulfilled. But perhaps it had to end the way it did since we could’ve never had enough of Steyn. Well most of us anyway. Mohammad Hafeez had definitely had more than his fair share.
