Is it too early to declare Dale Steyn as an all-time great?

[kingkallis]

I'm not sure I entirely buy the flat track argument either. Steyn has also played most of his career in South Africa, where out of all the cricketing countries, save maybe England, the pitches have most frequently retained the bounce and movement of yesteryear.

Overall 23 games in South Africa & 21 in other countries.

Steyn has just 8 wickets in England.

He has 26 wickets in 5 games in India - which is really impressive.

 

[bagapath]

I like my ATG to have atleast 300 wickets so yes in that regard Steyn in still atleast 15 test matches away from the tag but I am sure he will get there.

so oreilly, barnes, holding, lindwall, garner and fazal mahmood dont make your list i presume.

Everyone agreed Warne was an ATG by the time he had barely taken 100 odd wickets.
This can't be about stats alone. He took 600 more AFTER he attained legendary status.

I guess Steyn's high ER is bothering me a little bit. But he is the only bowler I look forward to watching these days. May be he will become one of the legends pretty soon.

for me, separating an ATG from the other greats is like, to borrow a line from a famous judgment, separating the obscene from the ******. I can't define how I do it but I know when I have to do it.

 

[Xuhaib]

so oreilly, barnes, holding, lindwall, garner and fazal mahmood dont make your list i presume.

Everyone agreed Warne was an ATG by the time he had barely taken 100 odd wickets.
This can't be about stats alone. He took 600 more AFTER he attained legendary status.

I guess Steyn's high ER is bothering me a little bit. But he is the only bowler I look forward to watching these days. May be he will become one of the legends pretty soon.

for me, separating an ATG from the other greats is like, to borrow a line from a famous judgment, separating the obscene from the ******. I can't define how I do it but I know when I have to do it.

you got me in a spin there but yeah i feel even though stats are not every thing but there should be a minimum number to judge an ATG and 300 comes across as a good solid number to me.

 

[GotSpin]

By your classification Bhaji is in contention for ATG status. Setting a number as a benchmark qualification is highly flawed IMO

 

[Xuhaib]

By your classification Bhaji is in contention for ATG status. Setting a number as a benchmark qualification is highly flawed IMO

yeah he's in contention but he's not one I reckon though longevity is under appreciated imo.

 

[G.I.Joe]

IIRC there were more draws in the 90s than the 00s.

 

[centurymaker]

IIRC there were more draws in the 90s than the 00s.

Much slower scoring rate mate.

 

[centurymaker]

Most pitches aside from those in England and some in South Africa have flattened out drastically over the last 10 years. The batsmen of the 80s and 90s were no less talented, but faced a plethora of great bowlers who had pitches that enabled an even contest between bat and ball.

Nope, pitches in england are quite flat too. It's mainly just the overcast weather that makes the ball talk over there.

 

[Uppercut]

I guess Steyn's high ER is bothering me a little bit.

Surely you'd rather he had a high ER, given his average? Just means he's taking wickets more often.

 

[bagapath]

Surely you'd rather he had a high ER, given his average? Just means he's taking wickets more often.

i agree. but an under 3 ER would bring his average further down, to the mcgrath - donald league - and then his place in the ATG club will be unquestioned. i know this is sounding silly but i am not yet sure why i dont consider him an all time great. his spell in the first innings of the first test in india earlier this year was as good as anything i have ever seen. but still, something is stopping me from looking at him the same way i would look at akram or ambrose.

 

[M0rphin3]

I guess Steyn's high ER is bothering me a little bit.

Steyn's bowling quite well if you consider the era he bowls in. And I won't really give a damn given his fab s/r and average, which I doubt any other bowler will be able match on a long term basis.

 

[vcs]

I can see Xuhaib's point, in this era, 300+ wickets for an ATG is a decent enough requirement considering the amount of cricket played, in order to prove one's longevity. For batsmen, similarly you might want them to score atleast 8000-9000 runs. Doesn't apply to the old-timers, because there was less cricket played back then in a career of comparable length.

Obviously, it doesn't mean everybody who's made that many runs, or taken that many wickets at an ordinary average (like Harbhajan) sneaks in.

 

[Uppercut]

i agree. but an under 3 ER would bring his average further down, to the mcgrath - donald league - and then his place in the ATG club will be unquestioned. i know this is sounding silly but i am not yet sure why i dont consider him an all time great. his spell in the first innings of the first test in india earlier this year was as good as anything i have ever seen. but still, something is stopping me from looking at him the same way i would look at akram or ambrose.

Could be because he's not the best ODI bowler. It'd be nice to think we were all capable of keeping the two formats separate but it's surely got to make a difference to our opinions when we see Steyn going for runs so regularly. Whereas Wasim Akram...

Longevity definitely comes into play too- if he keeps this up for another couple of years we'll be putting him up there with the best for sure.

 

[marc71178]

Yes, can't be an ATG till he gets a double century IMO.

 

[subshakerz]

Dale Steyn is well on his way to becoming an all-time great. The only reason he can't be considered one right now is that he only has been this exceptional for the past three years, he needs a bit more time before it becomes official. Obviously, when he gets 300 wickets it will be easier to consider him as such. I feel if he was Australian or English, he would have been already lauded as among the best ever (look at how Johnson was declared the best fast bowler in the world after just two SA series, and Petersien was considered an all-time great in the making after a year or so).

A few things stick out from his record that make him remarkable. The first is his strikerate which is far ahead of any bowler aside from Waqar in the modern era (and Waqar's is not that exceptional when you remove Bangladesh and Zimbabwe). The other thing is how he has taken 14 five-fors from only 44 tests, out of which 13 have resulted in SA victory. When he fires, SA wins. It's an amazing stat if you think about it. If he can continue this rate, there is no doubt that after a few years he can considered one of the most destructive fast bowlers cricket has seen.

 

[MrIncredible]

ATG bowlers= av </=25, SR 55+/-, WPM~4 . Slightly different figures for spinners. So unless Steyn

does an about face between now and his retirement, he's already an ATG

 

[bagapath]

Yes, can't be an ATG till he gets a double century IMO.

yeah, marc. go ahead. whip me. kick me. ridicule me. burn me. there is no place for justice in this mean mean world.

 

[kingkallis]

ATG bowlers= av </=25, SR 55+/-, WPM~4 . Slightly different figures for spinners. So unless Steyn

does an about face between now and his retirement, he's already an ATG

I wanted to go for SR 50+/- but then I realized that doing this would eliminate McGrath, Imran, Ambrose from the list

 

[akilana]

I wanted to go for SR 50+/- but then I realized that doing this would eliminate McGrath, Imran, Ambrose from the list

then you should go for it

 

[cricket100%]

Dale Steyn definitely made his mark on world cricket. My opinion is that you should try and classify a player as an ATG after his retirement. I mean Steyn is 27 and there can still happen a lot of things in his career. If he retires now, I am 90% sure that he will be classified as an ATG