Ken Borland

Dale Steyn became the quickest to 400 Test wickets in terms of the number of deliveries bowled at the weekend and former Proteas star and Highveld Lions stalwart Neil McKenzie had some advice for the many batsmen who have fallen to the great fast bowler’s skills and the many who will try and play him in future.

McKenzie, who played 58 Tests and occasionally crossed swords with Steyn on the domestic circuit, said the key to facing the fiery 32-year-old lay in punishing the few bad balls that come your way and being able to handle the short-pitched delivery.

“Of course the batsman is always up against it against Dale, but if you can jump all over the occasional bad ball that comes your way then it helps release the pressure. You’ve also got to be able to play the short ball well because Dale uses that a lot. He has more of a skiddy bouncer, but he uses it to take away the batsman’s feet and the follow-up ball or two deliveries later is often the one that gets the wicket. So the feet have to be working well,” McKenzie told The Citizen.

The scorer of more than 19 000 first-class runs and maker of centuries in England, India, Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Australia, Sri Lanka and South Africa said what made Steyn special as a bowler was his ability to even be a threat on true batting pitches.

“What makes Dale such a great bowler is that he has weapons for whatever pitch, whatever the conditions are. If the pitch is seaming, he can obviously use that, if there’s bounce he uses that, if there’s swing he’s a master of moving it both ways, both conventional and reverse swing. If the pitch is slow or flat, then he has the skills to still be dangerous. That’s the ultimate bowler, McKenzie said.

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 …

Albie Morkel produced one of the great innings in a final as his phenomenal unbeaten century took the Unlimited Titans to a five-wicket win with 17 balls to spare over the Nashua Cape Cobras to claim the Momentum One-Day Cup title at Newlands last night.

Morkel finished with an exceptional 134 not out off just 103 balls, making his first List A century when it really counted. The powerful left-hander took his time to get settled, before he and fellow centurion Dean Elgar turned what looked like a procession for the Cobras into a horror defeat.

Richard Levi had scored 104 off 113 balls to lead the Cobras to a commanding 285 for eight after they chose to bat first and there seemed little hope of a Titans win when the visitors slumped to 60 for four in the 15^th over.

But Elgar (100) and Morkel added a magnificent, record-breaking 195 and even though Elgar’s 119-ball innings came to an end when he mistimed a pull off Rory Kleinveldt when 31 runs were still required, Morkel did not stand on ceremony and rushed the Titans home in a blaze of boundaries.

Morkel hit eight fours and seven sixes and seemed to succeed with every stroke he played; not only was he in the zone, but his reading of the match situation was superb and his ability to remain composed under pressure was impressive.

Elgar’s century was his second in succession after his match-winning effort in the playoff and the gritty left-hander has become a master of pacing a limited-overs innings.

Levi and Puttick put on 180 off 198 balls for the Cobras’ first wicket and the home side looked on course for well over 300.

But Tabraiz Shamsi produced a super display of controlled wrist-spin to slow their progress, trapping Levi leg-before as the Cobras scored just 115 runs in the last 20 overs.

Puttick was run out for 69 but there was little intent from the other Cobras’ batsmen before Dane Vilas lifted them to a competitive, if ultimately disappointing total with his 40 off 25 balls.

Kleinveldt and off-spinner Sybrand Engelbrecht dented the Titans’ ambitions with a couple of wickets each, but the brilliance of Morkel and Elgar gradually saw the Cobras’ confidence melt away.