Dale Steyn’s high velocity bowling stemmed from a run-up and action that were almost balletic. It was brutal pace with grace.
Now 38 with 439 Test wickets behind him, Steyn is the pace bowling coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad in the Tata-IPL. The former South African pace predator answered questions from The Hindu here on Friday.
Working with new pace bowling sensation Umran Malik
I could have been with any IPL franchise, but coming to Sunrisers and playing a role in Umran’s development is very satisfying. He is very much the talk of the town.
Umran’s attributes
He is very fast, something that cannot be taught. You have to be born with the ability to bowl fast. If you have that, the support staff can help you maintain that speed.
In this IPL, he has forced batters to play him differently with his scary pace, forced them out of their comfort zones, and got them into uncomfortable body positions.
He can swing the ball and bowl yorkers at will. The other night against Gujarat, four of his five victims were bowled. Umran has a nasty short-pitched ball. Batters anticipate that delivery and are preparing to cut or slash him when he bamboozles them with the yorker. It’s a double bluff. He is beating batters with sheer speed, they are late on the ball. I wish he bowls the short-pitched delivery more often.
Sunrisers’ complete pace attack
Bhuvneshwar and Natarajan are professional international bowlers. They know their roles and have Plans ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ in place. Jansen is an exciting prospect. He can bring the ball into the right-hander from that height and extract natural bounce.
Against Royal Challengers, he removed Faf du Plessis and Virat Kohli in his first over to open up the game for us. But he could not defend 20-plus runs in the last over against Gujarat Titans. That can happen. He is still young and getting used to the IPL last-over pressure.
The idea was not wrong, he was trying to bowl yorkers. But could not get the execution right. Once the ball leaves the hand, it is out of your control.
This said, two of the sixes eluded fielders on the boundary by inches. Games are decided by inches.
On Dean Elgar turning things around for South Africa in Tests
Very happy. He’s courageous, is the best opener in the team, has played in different parts of the world, understands the game, and can motivate his men.
