Where does Dale Steyn stack up historically

[h_hurricane]

It's a curious stat. Like Dhoni not having any centuries away from Asia (though he averages pretty well in most places, still). Useful to twist around if you don't like the player.

I have heard Sanjay Manjrekar and Saurav Ganguly bring this **** about Dhoni multiple times during their commentary stints. Of course they do not realize (or pretend not to) that Dhoni was a WK batsman and should not be subject to this scrutiny reserved for top order batsmen.

 

[StephenZA]

That's great, diversity and all. Aussie stephen probably ranks Jackson Bird higher than Steyn so fair play.

I still think Fanie is the greatest bowler of all time for what he did to Aus in '94.

 

[h_hurricane]

I think people rating Mcgrath higher than Steyn (vast majority do, me too) should realize that though they have a strong case in doing so, the narrative of rating Steyn higher than Mcgrath cannot be entirely dismissed.

 

[trundler]

I still think Fanie is the greatest bowler of all time for what he did to Aus in '94.

I think people rating Mcgrath higher than Steyn (vast majority do, me too) should realize that though they have a strong case in doing so, the narrative of rating Steyn higher than Mcgrath cannot be entirely dismissed.

All valid opinions. Stephen forgot Schultz though.

 

[trundler]

I suspect people will find them tough to split (as ought to be) in a couple of years. I think few would've rated McGrath ahead of Akram in 07.

 

[StephenZA]

All valid opinions. Stephen forgot Schultz though.

I detest Schultz... as good as a bowler he was.

 

[srbhkshk]

I have heard Sanjay Manjrekar and Saurav Ganguly bring this **** about Dhoni multiple times during their commentary stints. Of course they do not realize (or pretend not to) that Dhoni was a WK batsman and should not be subject to this scrutiny reserved for top order batsmen.

It's a way to point out that Dhoni was an inferior batsman outside SC which is quite true for what it's worth.

 

[h_hurricane]

It's a way to point out that Dhoni was an inferior batsman outside SC which is quite true for what it's worth.

Not disputing this, but it depends on the context and whom he is compared with. It made sense if he was compared with someone like Glichrist. I think it was during one of India's overseas tests 5-6 years back when we were having a harrowing time with the bat. Sanjay asked Saurav how this team would compare with their predecessors, and then Saurav talked about poor techniques of the likes of Dhoni and that he did not have a century outside Asia, and how the quartet of Sachin, Dravid, Lakshman and himself were superior to MS. Sanjay concurred.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I couldn't place him in the poll. There's a group of elite fast bowlers in history of which I think he's one.

 

[Slifer]

The subcontinent is generally tougher to get wickets on as a pacer since the wickets are slower and there's less lateral movement on offer. This isn't very complicated.

But subcontinent players generally aren't as good at playing pace as their Australian counterparts. Hence why most recent very good to great fast bowlers have ordinary to poor records in Australia. Most of those same bowlers have done better in asia. Donald, steyn, walsh, akram, waqar, shoaib, pollock etc.

 

[srbhkshk]

I never said Steyn got any of his 5-wicket hauls against Bangladesh. And why are you still talking about 5 wicket hauls? It's a somewhat interesting stat but it doesn't really actually mean anything, objectively. If 2 players have similar stats but one has much more 5-wicket hauls is vastly more likely just an indication of the strength and effectiveness of the rest of the attack. Claiming that it means a bowler is more likely to win a match for his team is very short-sighted.

Nah, whilst true in general, Steyn's 5 wicket hauls are absolutely representative of him being a death machine when on song rather than an indication of SA's bowling quality which for the most parts has always been above average to excellent. This is one facet of the game where he absolutely was better than McGrath, of course in converse it does mean that McGrath's lows were better than Steyn's lows.

 

[Malcolm]

That was against batsmen in the top seven, not top seven teams, and tbh I'm not sure how anyone even has that stat as it's not available on cricinfo.

Against top seven teams he averaged 24.

How do we get this information ? Unless ball by ball analysis is available for a good part of 2 decades. I am sure Mcgrath was better than Steyn in this metric, but doubt by the extent what it says.

Player vs player match-up is available nowadays.

I compiled the list of top-order(1-7) batsman Steyn bowled to, and checked their H2H stats.

Steyn averages 28.55 against top 7 with a strike rate of 52.91 and with an economy rate of 3.23.

These are not 100% accurate as there may be cases of a tail-ender batting as nightwatchman, a number 8 batting as a number 7, etc, but I think they are negligible as we are taking a large sample size.

 

[srbhkshk]

Player vs player match-up is available nowadays.

Where did you get the data?

 

[Malcolm]

Where did you get the data?

cricmetric.com

 

[Malcolm]

I'd also like to know their averages against 8-11. If Steyn has a much better average against the tail than McGrath, it would go someway to making up for the difference against top 7 batsmen.

The more I think about it the stat of Steyn averaging 29 against top 7 doesn't seem right. He'd have to average like 5 against tailenders to get to where his career average is

Steyn against tail-enders averages around 10 with a ridiculous strike rate of around 20.

 

[Malcolm]

Pretty sure these stats are wrong.

I am pretty confident about the numbers. It might not be 100% faultless, but it would be somewhat close.

 

[stephen]

That's great, diversity and all. Aussie stephen probably ranks Jackson Bird higher than Steyn so fair play.

Piss off. I was rating Steyn while you were still in kindergarten.

http://www.cricketweb.net/forum/cricket-chat/48989-too-early-declare-dale-steyn-all-time-great.html

 

[MrPrez]

I am pretty confident about the numbers. It might not be 100% faultless, but it would be somewhat close.

Well that's reassuring.

 

[h_hurricane]

Here is a statistical comparison of the great fast bowlers of the last 50 years(sub 24 average with decent longevity). For the sake of simplicity, I have taken out factors like era adjustments and have given weightage like this.
Bowling Average : 7 points. Marshall gets full points here as he has the best bowling average. You can call it Marshall Standard.
Wickets Per match : 2 points. Call it Lillee standard.
Career wickets : 1 point. Anderson standard though he is out of reckoning here.

1.Glenn Mcgrath 9.54
2.Malcolm Marshall 9.48
3.Curtly Ambrose 9.32
4.Richard Hadlee 9.30
5.Joel Garner 9.20
6.Dale Steyn 9.01
7.Allan Donald 8.97
8.Dennis Lillee 8.75
9.Imran Khan 8.68
10.Shaun Pollock 8.61
11.Waqar Younis 8.56
12.Wasim Akram 8.50
13.Courtney Walsh 8.45
14.Michael Holding 8.26

 

[Logan]

1.Glenn Mcgrath 9.54
2.Malcolm Marshall 9.48
3.Curtly Ambrose 9.32
4.Richard Hadlee 9.30
5.Joel Garner 9.20
6.Dale Steyn 9.01
7.Allan Donald 8.97
8.Dennis Lillee 8.75
9.Imran Khan 8.68
10.Shaun Pollock 8.61
11.Waqar Younis 8.56
12.Wasim Akram 8.50
13.Courtney Walsh 8.45
14.Michael Holding 8.26

1. Every bowler in this list except one guy retired before 2008.

2. Glad to see Pollock’s name. Underrated ATG. In his first 75 Tests, he picked 300 wickets @ an average of 20.87. He was a pale shadow of his self during the last stages of his career