Ken Borland

Dale Steyn brings an almost religious fervour to the art of fast bowling and Allan Donald says it is this passion for taking wickets that separates Steyn from other great pacemen.

Steyn became the 13^th bowler to take 400 Test wickets in the second Test against Bangladesh in Dhaka this week, but his strike-rate of just 41.5 balls-per-wicket sets him apart from all the other cricketers to have achieved that milestone.

New Zealand great Sir Richard Hadlee is a distant second on 50.8, meaning Steyn is the most incisive bowler in Test history. Counting bowlers who took 300 Test wickets, Steyn still has the best strike-rate, followed by Waqar Younis (43.4), Malcolm Marshall (46.7), Donald himself (47.0) and Fred Trueman (49.4).

“Obviously Dale has immense skill to do that, but you can bring all the skill in the world to the table but if you don’t have passion you’re not going to have a record like his. The one thing that stands out for me, that separates Dale from the rest, is the deep competitive edge that only he has, which makes him into that incredible bowler. The number of times he has produced something special for South Africa because he’s so attack-minded,” Donald told The Citizen on Friday.

Donald, whose record certainly bears comparison to Steyn’s, is a firm believer that the 32-year-old is one of the all-time great bowlers.

“I get very passionate when I talk about the absolute greats – McGrath, Ambrose, Pollock – and they’ve all done amazingly well over a long period of time. You judge the greats on one thing and that’s consistency. Dale has got to 400 Test wickets so quickly because he’s so consistent, taking 80 Tests, that’s five wickets a game. His consistency is why his strike-rate is so low,” Donald said.

Remarkably, Steyn is as effective on the sub-continent as he is anywhere else, his haul of 80 wickets in 16 Tests (prior to the current game) perfectly matching his career-average of five per match. Only Hadlee and West Indian Andy Roberts have had better rates of success on the sub-continent.

“You only have to see how phenomenal Dale is in the sub-continent to understand his skill factor, especially reverse-swing. His pace through the air and ability to reverse the ball both ways are his greatest assets over there,” Donald said.

Steyn’s former bowling coach with the Proteas said he is not sure whether the man with the second-most Test wickets for South Africa behind Shaun Pollock (421) would consider slowing down and using skill more than pace as he gets older, as Hadlee did so successfully for New Zealand.

“I hope he’s got more diesel in the tank but he’s 32 and, after a massive milestone, it will be interesting to see how he’s handled over the next 12 months. He looks fresh and hungry at the moment, but I think he would hate bowling at 134km/h. He’ll have to decide that for himself, but there’s a huge series coming up in India and we need him bowling at his best in that,” Donald said.

GRAPHICS

Career records

       Tests  Inns   Balls    Runs   Wkts  Best    BM      Av      ER      SR      5i    10m
Steyn   80     149    16716   9040    402  7-51   11-60   22.48    3.24    41.5    25     5

Donald  72     129    15519   7344    330  8-71   12-139  22.25   2.83    47.0     20     3

Most Test wickets in Asia by bowlers from outside the subcontinent

*Stats courtesy CricInfo & sportskeeda.com

Last weekend’s thrilling Test against the All Blacks showed that the Springboks are genuine contenders for the World Cup, but they have to be able to produce their best play for 80+ minutes and they also have to be clinical in taking points from whatever opportunities are presented to them.

A team has seldom dominated the All Blacks in almost every facet of play as much as the Springboks did at Ellis Park last weekend, but the Kiwis showed why they are the undisputed number one side and the favourites for the World Cup by somehow still engineering a victory. They did this by being ruthlessly clinical – the few chances they had to score, they took.

You know a coach is feeling the pressure when he makes 25 excuses in a dozen minutes at his post-match press conference, but there’s no doubt the last fortnight has been hugely frustrating for Heyneke Meyer as his Springbok team have shown such potential before faltering at the final hurdle in successive Tests against Australia and New Zealand.

The Springboks are injury-hit and they are not getting the crucial 50/50 decisions at the moment, but the bottom line is that they have shown a disappointing lack of composure when matches reach the critical final quarter.

In fact, the abiding feature of the Heyneke Meyer era has been the infuriating tendency of his team to play both sublime and mediocre rugby in the same match.

Solving this problem before the World Cup is obviously critical and I hope Meyer will be looking at a very interesting book which was launched this week – Creative Rugby by Dr Kobus Neethling and former Springbok captain Naas Botha.

Neethling is very well qualified in the field of brain skills and creativity and he says the book may answer the question why South Africa does not win the Rugby Championship way more often than three times in 20 years given that we have more players than New Zealand and Australia put together and wonderful talent to choose from.

As Botha pointed out at the launch, it’s very clear in this professional age that what makes the All Blacks better than the rest is what they have between their ears given that the science is there to make all international players as strong and as fast as each other.

The great flyhalf’s main gripe about South African rugby in general is that we go very overboard on game plans. He told horror stories of players who have come to him and said their coach, even at franchise level, came and told them that if they don’t put the ball under their arm and drive at the first channel then they will find someone else who will. Botha blamed the devolution of Morne Steyn from a creative, all-round flyhalf into someone considered now to just be a kicker on the strictures of game plans.

The authors added that teams need to have game plans, but that these are just a springboard because matches are fluid and sides that are stuck in their plan and can’t think on their feet don’t win.

Neethling said the work he did with Paul Treu when he was the Springboks Sevens coach proved very quickly how effective using creative thinking and knowing the brain profiles of your players can be.

The fear of losing is a very strong force in South African rugby, mostly caused by impatient fans and administrators, and it causes coaches to stick to what they know best.

When the Springboks were very close to the All Blacks’ line last weekend, against 14 men, why did they keep trying to bash through with the forwards and not try Damian de Allende, who had been bumping off defenders all game, charging through on an angled run?

The difference between the New Zealand and South African mindsets becomes very clear when you consider the local reaction to Richie McCaw’s match-winning try: instead of applauding the creativity and skill behind a clever piece of rugby, excuses were quickly sought in the law-book, trying to label the move as illegal.

I am happy, however, that Meyer is trying to innovate and is desperately trying to get his players to play what is in front of them. He drums in the importance of decision-making at every opportunity, but at times he must wonder if he has inherited from the pipeline the rugby equivalent of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman from the Wizard of Oz …

The Indian Premier League is a circus, a jamboree, a get-rich-quick scheme and a money-laundering device according to some people, but it is also a gathering of top-class cricketers from the world over, a cacophony of entertainment and a two-month explosion of non-stop action.

Coming from South Africa (how many times a day do you hear a plaintive “only in Africa”?), we should understand that the IPL does things differently and just because the English don’t get it, it doesn’t mean we should turn our noses up at it either.

The best approach to the IPL is probably to just enjoy it for what it is – pretty mindless entertainment and a wonderful way for our marvellous cricketers to be financially rewarded – and not try to fathom how it all works, whether it is financially viable or whether good standards of corporate governance are being followed.

Because if you do probe beneath the garishly-coloured uniforms, skimpy cheerleader outfits and Shah Rukh Khan’s shiny suits, you are going to find controversies aplenty.

The IPL has tentacles that reach as high as the Indian government: When the Kochi Tuskers were dumped in 2011 for defaulting on payments to the governing body, it led to an Indian minister resigning from the cabinet because he had been using his influence improperly.

This year’s major controversy has been the banning of Sri Lankan players from Chennai, the home of the Super Kings, because the chief minister of Tamil Nadu has said she cannot guarantee their security in the wake of protests over the treatment of Tamils in the island just to the south of the mainland.

How a vote-seeking politician, pandering to populist interests, has been able to hold a multi-billion dollar international tournament to hostage has baffled many people. But then the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, who own the IPL, is Narayanaswami Srinivasan, whose cement company just happens to be based in Chennai and which owns the Super Kings.

The conflicts of interest are glaring, but that’s just how things operate in Indian cricket and the Super Kings are certainly not the only team to have stakeholders with interests in the administration as a whole.

Cricket South Africa have shown a tendency to believe this is how things can be run over here as well, but hopefully the public outrage that forced them to ditch former chief executive Gerald Majola, who was corrupted by the IPL millions, will keep the current board on the straight and narrow.

Although the IPL has attracted much more money than any other cricket tournament in the history of the game, there are strong indications that the current largesse is not financially sustainable.

The last two seasons have seen the lowest television viewership figures of the six years the event has been in existence, while the base price the new Hyderabad Sunrisers paid for the bankrupt Deccan Chargers was roughly half as much as the BCCI charged for the Pune and Kochi franchises in 2010.

And Venky Mysore, the chief executive of the Kolkata Knight Riders, admitted recently that, “Everybody has become conscious that player costs are going up and clearly it is not sustainable from a franchise point of view.”

Allegations of match-fixing and black money (unaccounted for) payments saw five players banned last year, but those in the know suggest there is much more malfeasance waiting to be uncovered.

In other embarrassments, Shah Rukh, the owner of the Knight Riders, was given a five-year ban from the Wankhede Stadium by the Mumbai Indians after he was involved in an unseemly altercation with security there last year, while Dale Steyn was threatened with a law suit by the Chargers for not fulfilling his contract, even though they no longer existed as a franchise!

This was also after Steyn, and Bangalore Royal Challengers star AB de Villiers, were both paid several months late by their franchises.

While Steyn and De Villiers are in the prime of their careers and obviously command top dollar, one of the charms of the IPL is that it allows international stars to keep entertaining their fans late in their careers.

Instead of sitting in their rocking chairs, the likes of Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee are still out there performing for two months a year.

It was Lee who began IPL 6 on the perfect note by bowling India U19 star Unmukt Chand with a cracking first ball of the tournament; and was then clobbered for four by Mahela Jayawardene off the second delivery.

And who cannot be thrilled with the sight of Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar opening the batting together for the Mumbai Indians?

There are 76 matches in all, so there will no doubt be many more oohs and aahs to come.

South Africa is well-represented by Albie Morkel, Chris Morris and Faf du Plessis at the Chennai Super Kings; Johan Botha, Morné Morkel and Roelof van der Merwe at the Delhi Daredevils; David Miller (Punjab Kings XI), Jacques Kallis and Ryan McLaren at KKR, Wayne Parnell (Pune Warriors), De Villiers with the Royal Challengers and Steyn, JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock with rookies Hyderabad Sunrisers.

The Delhi Daredevils and Bangalore Royal Challengers, both consistent challengers for the title, are coached by South Africans in Eric Simons and Ray Jennings respectively, while Allan Donald is Pune’s bowling coach.

Interference by team owners – one coach famously had to field a player who could hardly walk – is a hardship they have to put up with. But if the dollars they are earning don’t compensate sufficiently, then they can always take a cue from the rest of us and just realise that it’s two months of cricket that doesn’t really mean a whole lot.

It’s more about entertainment than sporting excellence, and we can be thrilled by that too.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-04-10-ipl-enjoy-it-while-it-lasts/#.VcH4hfmqqko

You know a coach is feeling the pressure when he makes 25 excuses in a dozen minutes at his post-match press conference, but you can forgive Heyneke Meyer for being frustrated as his Springbok team have faltered at the final hurdle in successive Tests against Australia and New Zealand.

The Springboks are injury-hit and they are not getting the crucial 50/50 decisions at the moment, but the bottom line is that they have shown a disappointing lack of composure when matches reach the critical final quarter.

They are an inconsistent side and perhaps the abiding feature of the Heyneke Meyer era has been the infuriating ability of his team to play both sublime and mediocre rugby in the same match.

There are, however, enough encouraging signs for Meyer to stop playing the victim and actually start spreading some positive vibes ahead of the World Cup.

There are players of top-class quality spread throughout the team – a seasoned front row and lock Lood de Jager have been outstanding against serious opposition in the last two weeks; there is a multitude of talent at loose forward; Handre Pollard is a gifted flyhalf; a thrilling midfield pairing has come to light; and Willie le Roux and Bryan Habana are a handful for any defence.

A team has seldom dominated the All Blacks in almost every facet of play as much as the Springboks did at Ellis Park last weekend and but for a lack of finishing, they would surely have claimed a second-successive win against the world champions.

That the Springboks are a serious contender for the World Cup is a certainty. With a few experienced players coming back to bolster the team, a semi-final against New Zealand is a mouth-watering prospect (although a final would obviously be better).

A one-off encounter against the All Blacks could certainly go either way judging by their last two meetings with the Springboks.

“South Africa were pretty good today and the game could’ve gone either way. They’ve developed a style of play that is difficult to counter, they have a lot of pace in an exciting backline and brutal forwards. They may be number two in the world, but there’s nothing between number one and number two, as we saw today,” New Zealand coach Steve Hansen said after the game at Ellis Park.

But for the Springboks to have a genuine shot at winning the World Cup, they have to be able to produce their best play for 80+ minutes. They also have to be clinical in taking points from whatever opportunities are presented to them.

Going the distance is the challenge for this Springbok team and perhaps the return of experienced campaigners like Willem Alberts, Duane Vermeulen and Jean de Villiers will add the extra few percentage points they need to get over the line.

“I really thought the plan worked against the All Blacks, we were brilliant at the breakdown and we wanted to play positive rugby.

“I thought we scrummed really well, we have experienced players there, and Francois Louw was superb at the breakdown, the two opensides played really well. But when Flo went off we lost a lot of experience and they started to get quick ball.

“The difference between winning and losing in the last two weeks has been a few millimetres, so we are very close. We’ve played some great rugby and scored some great tries. There are a lot of guys coming back and we need to work really hard and I think we’ll be ready for the World Cup. This team is on the go,” Meyer said.

To prove that, I am really hoping the Springboks can produce the same level of play for 80 minutes and blow Argentina away on August 8 and 15, rather than being dragged down to their level and struggling to beat them.

I really hope we will be seeing the same intent on playing a high-tempo game and putting width on the ball, because the Pumas put enormous pressure on the breakdown, slowing down play and spoiling possession.

By using offloads and putting pace on the ball, the Springboks can avoid the ruck-bottlenecks, stretch the Argentineans and hopefully register emphatic victories, like New Zealand and Australia have done against the Rugby Championship new boys.