Mark Smit
12 September 2008
column
Johannesburg — DALE Steyn's achievement when he was voted Test cricketer of the year - announced in Dubai on Wednesday night - was great news for the fast bowler and the South African team.
It probably lifted spirits significantly in the Proteas' camp after their 4-0 walloping by England in the one-day series; a case of "any good news will help, thanks very much".
But should we be getting carried away?
Steyn won this award on the strength of a fantastic year in Test cricket, in which he took a remarkable 86 wickets at an even more remarkable average of just 18,10, in 14 Test matches.
The next bowler took 58 wickets in the same period and, according to the citation, Steyn was the only bowler to return an average of less than 21,50 per wicket (of those who played more than three matches).
It was a wonderful achievement and shows the promise of a player who is only 25.
But is Steyn the genuine article yet? Is he an Allan Donald, or a Glenn McGrath, or a Fanie de Villiers?
The answer is an emphatic "no, not yet".
Steyn still bowls too many loose deliveries; he bowls good spells and bad spells; he often fails to find the correct lines and lengths for the variety of pitches he plays on.
He has not yet got the class of Donald, the unerring accuracy and length of a McGrath or Shaun Pollock, or the consistency of either of those last two .
What Steyn most certainly has is "strike power" - that ability to swing the ball and bowl absolutely unplayable deliveries that no batsman can keep out.
In that respect, he reminds me of Donald and a ball the former Free State international bowled in a Test at Kingsmead in Durban, five or six years ago.
SA were playing India and Sachin Tendulkar was, as Eng-lish northerners like to say, "in his pomp" as a batsman. He was top in the number of centuries scored, top in the rankings and top in just about any other category .
But even he could not find the skills to resist a delivery from Donald that was delivered on a line just outside off-stump, hit the sympathetic Kingsmead pitch and snaked back like a mamba striking, to uproot Tendulkar's off-stump. It was a fabulous delivery -- one that will remain etched in my memory forever.
But there was more to it than that. Donald had been at the batsmen's throats all day, giving them almost no room to free their arms to hit boundaries and ease the pressure. He had kept them hogtied, so to speak, so that they -- or more particularly Tendulkar in this case -- were ripe for the picking when he bowled that off-cutter.
That is where Steyn still has a lot to learn. He has to learn how to keep batsmen constantly under pressure. He has to learn how to stop allowing his left shoulder fall away, which inevitably leads to a ball wide outside the off-stump.
He still has to learn how to think batsmen out and how to adapt his attack to the requirement of the conditions - be it on the subcontinent, in England or Australia.
It has so often been shown that wickets in Test cricket come almost as much from pressure, as they do from outstanding deliveries and Steyn - and his new-ball partner Morne Morkel for that matter - needs to learn how to tighten the screws and keep them tightened.
Too often, we have seen them go walkabout, bowling wayward spells and losing any grip or authority they might have had over the batsmen.
Bowlers simply cannot afford that in Test cricket, with batsmen who can turn the tables in the wink of an eye.
Steyn had a fantastic Test year and his award was a fitting accolade as reward. But is he the finished article yet? No, but he can be, if he works hard.
Smit is chief sports correspondent
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