After a long fight against the injuries, the South African pacer Dale Steyn has finally returned to the international cricket with the positive fitness that helped him to bowl in good rhythm in the recently concluded ODI series on the Australia tour. Talking about his earlier tough moment, Steyn said that he didn’t think to make the return to the cricket again.
In the last two years, the injuries have hampered Steyn’s international cricket career hugely. Though he made a very short return this January, it was quickly turned out as a hard experience after getting injured again.
He returned again in this July during the Test series in the Sri Lanka tour and also featured in the home ODI series against Zimbabwe. While Steyn was gradually improving in those few matches, he has got the full rhythm during the ongoing Australia tour where he finished as the joint most wicket-taker (7 wickets) in the three-match ODI series that South Africa won by 2-1.
According to Sports24, Steyn spoke out his hard time during the injury period, “Not so long ago I didn’t think that I would be playing cricket again. When I broke my shoulder I had this real drive to come back, but it took a long time. It took a solid six months before I could bowl again and I kept joking with my physio saying it was like U9 pace … I could get my arm over but there was no momentum.
“I knew that once I started playing again it would be like riding a bike. I’ve done it for so long and I’m blessed with a very natural action and things come quite easy.”
Apart from the physical improvement, Steyn also credited the positive mental set up for returning to the cricket again.
The 35-year-old right-arm pacer said, “A bit of mental strength needed to come into play watching the guys play and not being able to participate, but in the end I think it’s worked out nicely. I took every day as a blessing. The thinking was that if I could play one more game it would be amazing and, as a matter of fact, I broke it down to even bowling one more ball, one more over and taking one more wicket.”
Speaking about the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup plan, which is just more than six months to go, Steyn claimed it is still a long way to go as he is currently looking out one by one game.
Steyn said, “The World Cup is still a long way away. I think right now my biggest influence in that World Cup side is to come in and really push buttons where I can. I know that when I play well you will see that other guys start to play well too. You’ll see KG [Kagiso Rabada] is performing even better because there is good competition and rivalry within the side.
Also read: Dale Steyn Reveals His Plans For ICC World Cup 2019
“That’s my job right now. When that side gets selected, whenever it does, that’s somebody else’s job and we’ll worry about that when it comes. Right now I just want to play the next game available to me.”
