Pakistani Cricket Players: Dale Steyn

Dale Steyn Biography
Full name Dale Steyn
Born June 27, 1983, Phalaborwa
Current age 27 years 207 days
Playing role Bowler
Batting style Right-hand bat
Bowling style Right-arm fast
Major teams South Africa, Africa XI, Essex, Northerns, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Titans, Warwickshire
Dale Steyn Profile
Dale Steyn could be just the latest nuclear-tipped arrow that South Africa have drawn from their seemingly bottomless quiver of classy fast bowlers. The trouble, for opposing batsmen, is that he is rather more than that. Pure pace is one thing, pinpoint pure pace distinctly another. Pinpoint pure pace poison-tipped with aggression still another. Add the regularity with which Steyn moves the ball away from right-handers, and the way his deliveries skid at batsmen - a lack of height isn't all bad - and the danger he poses is obvious.
Steyn has grown into a bowler who has a firm grip on all of the tenets of the faith of the fast and the furious. But his is no paint-by-numbers tale of ability plus skill plus experience seamlessly stitching itself into a story of success.

He began his career armed with more pace than he knew what to do with, and little else: when he played his first Test against England in 2004, he was far from the bowler just described. Then, as he made peace with his bowling action and figured out how best to hone a body seemingly not suited to the rigours of life as fast bowler for just that fate, came the accuracy. Steyn took 16 wickets in his second series, but there remained a suspicion that he wasn't as dominant and aggressive as a fast bowler of his class should be. He was simply too nice.

All of which changed in South Africa's home series against the New Zealanders in 2007-08. A visibly fired up Steyn took ten wickets in the first Test in Johannesburg. Then, shortly after lunch on the first day of the second Test in Centurion, he earned all that nastiness he needed in the sickening instant in which Craig Cumming flapped at a short delivery. Cumming missed, and the ball crashed into his face and sent him to intensive care. Suddenly, Steyn was no longer a nice kid with a bit of zip.

The flow of wickets became a gush, and in 2008, he became the fastest South African, and the 15th fastest overall, to reach 100 Test wickets. That September, Steyn was named ICC Test Player of the Year after taking 86 wickets in 14 matches at an average of 18.10. And so on and so forth ... expect many more stupendous statistics in the years to come.

Dale Steyn