Dale Steyn : Firing bazookas while doing the ballet.

I do not write this blog on account of Dale Steyn’s wonderful performace against India at the Wanderers. That was expected!
I write to pay homage to probably the only man in present day cricket who you can watch performing with a ball in his hand and not a bat. He is the man who has kept the art of fast bowling in a batting dominated game alive.
Steyn is 30, an age by which most fast bowlers have become either medium pacers or are running their restaurants.
So what makes Steyn special? His bowling runup has the rhythm of a ballet dancer. At 6 feet he is able to bang the ball in to generate bounce. More than that it is the work rate of this 30 year old fast bowler.
Its well known that fast bowlers fare well in Australian and South African pitches. Steyn is no exception. He has fared extremely well on those pitches.
But his performance on subcontinent pitches is what makes him truly great.
Steyn burst into the headlines in 2007, when he was just 24. That too by taking 5 wickets against Pakistan in Pakistan on a pitch considered a death bed for fast bowling.
Ahmedabad, India, 2008. India dismissed for 76 in the first innings and Steyn had figures of 8-2-23-5. South Africa scored 400 plus in their first innings and went on to win the test match.
He came back to haunt India in 2010 again on a flat wicket of Nagpur with figures of 16.4-6-51-7. Another match winning performance from Steyn on the flat pitches of India. And well, it was the second innings of the test match.
One dayers- World Cup 2011-5 for 20 against India in Nagpur. In the IPL, he shows up day in and dayout for the Sunrisers hurling bouncers and yorkers at the opponents, most of whom are clueless of what hit them.
The man has produced some brilliant deliveries on the flat subcontinent pitches and if your memory doesn’t serve on you on that, youtube videos will.
It’s the hunger of this man and the love for fast bowling that makes him great. A fierce competitor on the pitch he loves to run in and bend his back every single ball. Dead pitch, bouncy pitches, lost cause in a game ; this man will put in his best effort and will make the ball talk in a batsman dominated game.
Sachin, Dravid and Ponting have now retired.If you miss watching them, you can look at Steyn ; similar class in a different art- the art of fast bowling.