The story of Dale Steyn is the story of a single delivery -- the outswinger. Not just any outswinger, however, but the one bowled so expertly and so consistently by the South African fast bowling great. It was a delivery that he made uniquely his.
Many other bowlers bowl the outswinger. Yet none send down a more menacing version. None seem to bend it so devilishly late in its flight. Steyn’s outswinger didn’t necessarily deviate a great deal. It usually moved just enough to find the edge or to make the batter think how very lucky he was to have missed it.
Armed with a new ball, and squaring up against a righthander, Steyn was often unplayable. It didn’t matter who the batter was – Tendulkar or Dravid or Ponting – survival would be the primary concern. They knew they needed a sizable dose of good fortune to see him off.
The opening batter facing Steyn at the beginning of the innings knew what was coming, much like defenders knew Stanley Matthews’ famous dribble was coming yet were still powerless to stop it. Batters knew the ball would be fairly full. It would mostly inhabit a line on or around offstump. And seemingly very late in its flight the ball would probably veer away. They knew what was coming, but were still at a loss as to how to combat it. The length and line were already demanding. The swing would often make it impossible.
It was outswing that made him the Test-match bowler he was, arguably the best fast bowler the game has ever seen. Of all the bowlers with more than 200 Test wickets, his strike rate of 42.3 balls per wicket is the best. This puts him some distance ahead of some of the greatest fast bowlers in history, bowlers like Malcolm Marshall, Dennis Lillee, Wasim Akram and Richard Hadlee, whose names come up every time there is a discussion about cricket’s best fast bowlers.
“God gave me the outswinger,” stated Indian great Kapil Dev, “I had to develop the rest.” Apparently, God gave Dale Steyn his outswinger too. “Did you at any stage worry about losing your outswinger?” he was asked in an interview with The Cricket Monthly. “No, never,” came his reply. “That is the biggest thing I have got: my away-swinger. Hopefully, it never goes. I don’t think about fast bowling a lot. I just do it.”
Imagine that. Imagine being the best at something without even having to think about it. That is much unlike someone like Malcolm Marshall, who not only practiced his craft diligently but also thought about it deeply.
Steyn, by his own words, was something of a natural. He’d still have to work relentlessly hard at it – he’d not have reached where he did otherwise. But his athleticism, simple action and natural outswing indicate he was born to be a fast bowler.
Former Indian swing bowling master Zaheer Khan recounted, on Cricbuzz Live, a conversation he had with Steyn about bowling. “Imagine you bowling just outswingers, can you just work out inswinger as well?” This is how the South African answered: “He said,” reports Zaheer, that “he doesn’t have to because he wanted to protect the shape of his outswinger and he felt that if he works on his wrist position and somehow loses his outswing, then all the sting in his bowling is gonna go away.”
That reply was instructive. Steyn was saying that he knew the gem of a delivery his outswinger was and he’d do nothing to jeopardize its effectiveness. In Driving Ambition, his autobiography, former England captain Andrew Strauss tells of a period in his career when he and the England team coaches were trying to improve his driving as a way of expanding his range of strokes. He scored his runs mostly off the back foot and his driving off the front foot was seen as a glaring weakness that opponents were beginning to exploit.
After assiduous work on the matter, the left-hander reports that “I got out far more often driving the ball and I scored hardly any runs off the back foot.” His front foot driving got a little better, yet not only did it cause him to lose his wicket more often, it also hampered his previously outstanding backfoot play. Steyn was not willing to take that kind of risk.
Moving the ball both ways is an ability to be admired, however, and there were bowlers with a wider variety of skills. Jimmy Anderson and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, for example, were capable of swinging the new ball in and out as they pleased. Steyn did not exhibit that ability. What he had instead was perhaps the most potent weapon in the game -- the deadliest delivery in cricket. His outswinger was the most difficult to negotiate, and probably brought him more wickets than any delivery has brought any other bowler.
After swinging the new ball away from the right-handed batter, Steyn would return later in the game, provided the ball deteriorated enough to facilitate reverse swing, to snake the old ball wickedly back into the batter. His 7/51 at Nagpur in 2010 was largely a masterful display of reverse-swing bowling. After prizing out Murali Vijay and Sachin Tendulkar with the new ball,
he extracted the last five wickets with a stunning display of reverse swing. Taking wickets with the new ball, however, was his main strength and he did that better than any other bowler. It is no surprise then that South Africa’s best run in Tests coincided with the period of Steyn at the peak of his powers. He was, to be sure, one of the main causes of their success.
Dale Steyn had other weapons in his armoury. He had pace, accuracy and elicited serious reverse swing when conditions allowed. But it was his outswinger, a thing of beauty and bewitchment, that was his main stock in trade. It was his outswinger that made him the great bowler he was.
I write about cricket — its characters, its craft, and its culture — mostly from a Jamaican perspective. If this piece resonated with you, I'd be glad to have you along for the next one.