Is Dale Steyn the worst ever best fast bowler in the world?

[Flem274*]

Jeez people ease up on the guy, he's only young and to be the best when you're young is pretty good. He wouldn't make an SA all time team but how many sub-25 year old players would?

 

[Richard]

As I've said before - not all players' careers follow the same pattern. Yes, most have not yet reached their best at 25-26, but some have. Steyn could very easily be one. An early developer should not be confused for an abnormal talent.

 

[Athlai]

For those who were wondering, this is not how Richard Hadlee's bowling action looked when he was playing competitive cricket.

Absolute shocker by Rich there.

 

[Uppercut]

He bowled a few wayward balls down the leg side in the recent Aus series, however he didn't seem to have an issue with accuracy that was highly noticeable. Every now and then he has the ability to bowl that 'gem' delivery which shapes away a little from the batsman. If he increases the occurrence of that delivery he will become an even greater proposition.

He appears inaccurate because he bowls such an attacking line. It's also how he gets the magic deliveries so few others get. To left-handers he drifts into a more defensive line, which just makes him pretty ineffective, and against England and Australia- two teams with all-southpaw opening partnerships- he had a tendency to waste the new ball almost without fail.

He's hardly got McGrath-esque accuracy, but I definitely wouldn't call him wayward. He'll hit the right kind of area more often than not. If he goes for runs it's usually because the batsman are driving- i.e. he's doing it right.

 

[Richard]

As far as line to right-handed batsmen is concerned, Steyn is generally very good. He doesn't drift onto the pads with enormous regularity, nor does he bowl wide too often. As far as not bowling too many short deliveries and being cut and pulled, he's also pretty good.

However, the one area that is unavoidable about him is that he bowls from a short height with a low trajectory. This means his margin-for-error in length is small. Combined with the fact that he - rightly, in my view - is almost always looking to attack with a full length rather than defend with an in-between one, this means that he's usually going to go for a few.

Steyn isn't an exponentially wayward bowler or anything. He is simply one who, with his style and natural assets, would need extraordinary accuracy with length to bowl economically. This is something he doesn't have - his accuracy in terms of length is merely decent. It might get slightly better as his career progresses, but it's very unlikely to get to McGrath levels. Even if it did, the best he could hope for would be to concede 2.8-2.9-an-over or so. He's never going to be able to be going for 2.3-2.4-an-over with regularity.

 

[Evermind]

Heck, I think he's up there with the best of all time at this stage of his career, I'm just trying to understand the other side of the argument.

The other side of the argument is that everything now sucks, and everything in the past was perfect.

 

[Prince EWS]

I think it's worth remembering that whilst we can now look back in hindsight and take into account the entire careers of former greats, a lot of them had been recognised as "the best in the world" early in their careers having proven just as little as Steyn has now.

 

[Richard]

I think it's worth remembering that whilst we can now look back in hindsight and take into account the entire careers of former greats, a lot of them had been recognised as "the best in the world" early in their careers having proven just as little as Steyn has now.

It's not just a question of how much they've proven though - it's about their inherant basics and ability to get better.

Some people seem to deny what seems, to me, pretty obvious - that Steyn is just about as good now as he's likely to get. I presume Gelman's sentiments in starting this thread are similar to mine - ie, that Steyn is a limited bowler in certain respects, can never shake-off said limits, and thus cannot get better the way it was obvious a great many others could.

 

[Manee]

It's not just a question of how much they've proven though - it's about their inherant basics and ability to get better.

Some people seem to deny what seems, to me, pretty obvious - that Steyn is just about as good now as he's likely to get. I presume Gelman's sentiments in starting this thread are similar to mine - ie, that Steyn is a limited bowler in certain respects, can never shake-off said limits, and thus cannot get better the way it was obvious a great many others could.

Does he need to get better?! As he stands, he has an outstanding set of Test statistics and he is improving in ODI cricket through practice.

 

[Richard]

If Steyn doesn't get any better, he's undoubtedly the worst ever best-seam-bowler-in-World.

 

[Manee]

If Steyn doesn't get any better, he's undoubtedly the worst ever best-seam-bowler-in-World.

Why? His statistics line up against any of those of some of the all time greats or are you suggesting that his success is not sustainable.

 

[Richard]

I don't think it is sustainable no, not the sort of stuff we've seen from him the last 3 years, but that's a separate matter. I just think that the way Steyn has bowled in the last 3 years has been inferior to the way just about any of the aforementioned have bowled. His figures are indeed good, but not as good as those of the very, very best at their best.

 

[Manee]

I don't think it is sustainable no, not the sort of stuff we've seen from him the last 3 years, but that's a separate matter. I just think that the way Steyn has bowled in the last 3 years has been inferior to the way just about any of the aforementioned have bowled. His figures are indeed good, but not as good as those of the very, very best at their best.

Starting to understand now, will have a think about that.

 

[Richard]

Just to recap, an approximation - I've looked a bit closer this time and there is a gap or two where there's one or two very probable probables:
1926 to 1932/33 - Larwood
1933 to 1939 - Constantine or Martindale, or just possibly Bowes, but none of these were playing Test cricket regularly and can't be regarded as all-encompassing
1946 to 1955 - Lindwall
1955 to 1964 - Trueman
1964/65 - ? (would be either McKenzie or one of the Kiwis Cameron, Collinge and Taylor)
1965 to 1967 - Higgs
1968 to 1973 - Snow
1973/74 and 1974 - ? (pretty much has to be Mike Hendrick or Max Walker - even Bernard Julien is a contender, which tells you quite a bit)
1974/75 - 1981/82 - Lillee and occasionally someone else, such as Roberts, Imran Khan, Holding or Botham
1982 and 1982/83 - ?
1983 to 1990 - Marshall, and maybe sometimes Hadlee and Imran Khan
1990/91 to 1994/95 - Waqar Younis
1995 to 2000/01 - one of Donald, Ambrose, Wasim Akram and McGrath and never anyone else
2001 to 2005/06 - McGrath (who it was in the period between Jan '03 and June '04 in which time he played 2 ineffective Tests is anyone's guess - probably Shaun Pollock)
2006/07 - Mohammad Asif
2007/08 - Brett Lee
2008 to current - Steyn

Maybe dig-out a few more figures in due course. But even so, there's almost certainly bowlers there who were both less proven at the time and less good over their careers than Steyn is likely to be. So I think the answer probably has to be "no, he's not".

 

[zaremba]

Just to recap, an approximation:
1926 to 1932/33 - Larwood
1933 to 1939 - Constantine or Martindale, or just possibly Bowes
1946 to 1953/54 - Lindwall
1954 or so to 1961/62 - Trueman
1962 to 1965 - Hall
1966 to 1969 - at various points Snow and Peter Pollock
1970/71 - 1981/82 - Lillee and occasionally someone else, such as Roberts, Imran Khan or Holding
1983 to 1990 - Marshall, and maybe sometimes Hadlee and Imran Khan
1990/91 to 1994/95 - Waqar Younis
1995 to 2000/01 - one of Donald, Ambrose, Wasim Akram and McGrath and never anyone else
2001 to 2005/06 - McGrath
2006/07 - Mohammad Asif
2007/08 - Brett Lee
2008 to current - Steyn

Maybe dig-out a few more figures in due course.

Going by this list, Asif, Lee and Steyn has been a relatively lean patch.

Haven't really considered the list in much detail but I'd want to propose the name MW Tate for the period c1926 before Larwood emerged.

 

[Richard]

Yup he'd probably be the man - I don't know enough about the 1920s to be able to offer anything much, so have stopped at Larwood.

I don't think Asif is a lean anything though - my first thoughs on seeing his 2005/06 was that this was a bowler who was going to be unbelievably good. Sadly he doesn't seem to have the self-control to achieve it.

Of course, you could very easily argue it's been Steyn since 2006/07 - I'd have absolutely no problem at all with that.

 

[zaremba]

Yup he'd probably be the man - I don't know enough about the 1920s to be able to offer anything much, so have stopped at Larwood.

Me neither. Ralph Barker reckons so though which is good enough for me. Moreover MWT has always been my cricketing hero-from-a-bygone era, for reasons which you will find easy to predict.

 

[fredfertang]

I'd give the title to Tate from 1924 through to 1928 at least - 1919 to 1924 would be Jack Gregory by a short head from Ted MacDonald

 

[The Sean]

Just to recap, an approximation - I've looked a bit closer this time and there is a gap or two where there's one or two very probable probables:
1926 to 1932/33 - Larwood
1933 to 1939 - Constantine or Martindale, or just possibly Bowes, but none of these were playing Test cricket regularly and can't be regarded as all-encompassing
1946 to 1955 - Lindwall
1955 to 1964 - Trueman
1964/65 - ? (would be either McKenzie or one of the Kiwis Cameron, Collinge and Taylor)
1965 to 1967 - Higgs
1968 to 1973 - Snow
1973/74 and 1974 - ? (pretty much has to be Mike Hendrick or Max Walker - even Bernard Julien is a contender, which tells you quite a bit)
1974/75 - 1981/82 - Lillee and occasionally someone else, such as Roberts, Imran Khan, Holding or Botham
1983 to 1990 - Marshall, and maybe sometimes Hadlee and Imran Khan
1990/91 to 1994/95 - Waqar Younis
1995 to 2000/01 - one of Donald, Ambrose, Wasim Akram and McGrath and never anyone else
2001 to 2005/06 - McGrath (who it was in the period between Jan '03 and June '04 in which time he played 2 ineffective Tests is anyone's guess - probably Shaun Pollock)
2006/07 - Mohammad Asif
2007/08 - Brett Lee
2008 to current - Steyn

Maybe dig-out a few more figures in due course. But even so, there's almost certainly bowlers there who were both less proven at the time and less good over their careers than Steyn is likely to be. So I think the answer probably has to be "no, he's not".

Looks pretty solid. I still think Ken Farnes deserves to be in the discussion for the late-30s, and if we're including medium-pace/medium-fast bowlers like Tate in the 1920s then I'd argue for Bedser to be included in the discussion alongside Lindwall for the late 40s-early 50s.

 

[Richard]

Bedser absolutely between 1950/51 and 1954, probably was indeed better than Lindwall (though there's the significant caveat that he only played the single away series in that time), but earlier on certainly not. It's remarkable that Bedser took 11-fors in his first 2 Tests but then averaged 42 between '46/47 and '50. Truly incredible.

If he'd done well in that time he'd be England's greatest bowler, no questions asked.