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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUPMarch 6, 2015Dale SteynAUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND Q. How have you felt you've bowled so far in the tournament and are you seeing an improvement as you go along? DALE STEYN: Yeah, I don't think I've bowled too badly. I think the first game I go through it game by game, and I think against Zimbabwe I actually wanted to bowl quite quick and run in and try to knock them over, and I don't think it was quite the right strategy on that wicket. It was a bit slow, and their bowlers proved to be a handful. Just by getting the ball in the right area, good use of the slow ball and so on, I just ignored that instinct, and just wanted to run in and blast them where it didn't work. After that I think I got better and better. Against India, came out nicely. Who else did we play? I don't even remember. Ireland. So, yeah, I think it's gradually just gotten better. I haven't taken the wickets that I want to take, but that's the World Cup. In a World Cup you don't have anywhere to hide. There are no shadows where you can hide. You kind of criticize in every game that you play. If I was playing in a series back home, I would have been quite happy with the way things were going. There are only ten wickets to take, and when Imran takes five or AB takes four, there is not much for the other bowlers to take. So you have to do what you have to do in order for your team to win. I'm happy with that. I feel if we make our way all the way to the final, I'm due to have a good game somewhere in there. I'm almost halfway there. I've got a couple more to go before a good one's just around the corner. I hope it's coming out okay, and hopefully it just gets better. Q. If you had Alan Donald at your bowling coach, I'm sure he's been an influence on you. (Indiscernible) was also hired for a small stint when he was a bowling coach. How did that come along, and what caused the influence on the dead bowling? Secondly, will you be missing the feast tomorrow? DALE STEYN: Yeah, Waqa was great. It's always great to work with the legends of cricket. Alan is one of my biggest heros when I was growing up. I loved watching him bowl. It's always nice to sit in the changing room and talk about cricket. You know, when guys are at this level, you almost don't need coaching anymore. You just need their mentorship to be able to push you through to the next game, and notice small things in your game that you can tinker or just kind of like tweak here or there to improve your skill or improve whatever you feel is going wrong. So it's great to have Alan in there. I loved having Waqa during the IPL. IPL is a great kind of tournament because there is so much happening with the bat, but there is a lot to practice with the ball. There is a slow ball that's coming into play. There is the yorker. There is how to bowl in these situations. So I think Waqa was learning a lot from the players, being a player that never played in a 20 Twenty tournament for himself. But the stories he told us about his time with Pakistan were great during the '92 World Cup. He wasn't there. I don't think he was there. But just talking about those times and the great times that Pakistan fast bowlers were around him. It's always great to be around somebody like that. I met so many great bowlers in my time too, so it's a pleasure to have played International Cricket or play International Cricket. Q. Are you related to any other famous Steyns, like François, Morne? DALE STEYN: No, I don't think so. My dad? Is my dad famous? I don't know. No, I don't think so, no. Q. You're the only famous Steyn in your family? DALE STEYN: I wouldn't say I'm famous, but I'm the only one that's made it, I guess. Q. If you had to stop AB de Villiers on this ground, how would you have done that? Is it impossible to stop him? DALE STEYN: I'd trip him on his way out of the hotel tomorrow morning and hope that he breaks his ankle. I don't know (laughing). No, he's a series player. I've said it before. There are only two games I feel all year, and those are the two IPL games we'll play later against him this year. So trying to work it out in the nets, but he doesn't give all his secrets away in the nets, so that's going to be tough. He's a phenomenal player and seeing the ball like no other player is seeing a cricket ball before, and he's playing shots that I don't think most people have seen before, so great player. Hopefully he comes out and executes those same skills tomorrow and going forward in this competition. Q. (Indiscernible)? DALE STEYN: I really don't think it matters the dimensions of the ground really. It doesn't matter if it's a big ground or small ground, you'll still find a way. That is the beautiful thing about really good players. They don't rely on conditions. Great fast bowlers don't have to worry about whether the track is flat or green. They'll find a way to get wickets. And great batsmen don't worry if the field is small or big, they'll find a way to score runs. Q. Just some comments on Kyle Abbott, he's got an opportunity to be superb. And the selectors I suppose have good problems to choose between him or Vernon or both of them. DALE STEYN: Yeah, some nice problems in our camp, isn't it. Guys that have scored hundreds sitting on the sideline. We have one of the best most skillful bowlers in Vernon who is just working his way back from injury, and you get somebody to replace him like Kyle. He comes out and takes wickets and it's part of a team that scored two 400 runs in a row and still managed to get 20 wickets. So, yeah, nice problem to have. Kyle stepped up. He's always been one of those players that's always unlucky because he's kind of sitting behind Morne, Vernon and myself. We're struggling to make his way into the side. Every time he performs for the Dolphins he seems to take wickets. He gets his chance like he did the other day and grabbed it with both hands. Took four wickets or two or three against the West Indies with the great opening bowl. 7 or 9 or whatever it was on debut in the Test Match. So it just shows that the guys waiting in the wings are prepared to step up and are prepared to perform too. So I'm sure whoever plays tomorrow will be hungry enough to take wickets and score runs. Q. You must have seen Pakistan top order struggling against mostly pace and stuff. So do you see that South Africa has an easy job at hand tomorrow against Pakistani top order? DALE STEYN: It's never an easy job, I can promise you. I'm sure Pakistan will be as determined to come out and win. I don't know what the log looks like, but they are in a situation where I think they have to win a couple games. I'm kind of worried about my own team really than to worry about their side. So I don't know where they stand. But they'll come out guns blazing. I don't mean guns blazing like swinging the bat, but they'll come out looking to pull off a win. We know that. We just have to prepare the way we know how to prepare against a team like that, and we'll take it very seriously, I promise you. Q. Dale, just a few minutes ago you forgot about two matches which actually South Africa won by 201 runs and 208 runs. Does that show a sense of frustration that the bowlers have in this tournament that you almost forgot about those two matches? Is it just being that tough being a bowler in this World Cup and in such playing conditions? DALE STEYN: It's always tough to be a bowler, isn't it? All the rules are against us. All the things I feel are against us. But in this tournament, sorry when I say that I forget things, it's just I'm looking ahead. To be honest with you, there's a lot on my mind over the last couple games. We've had some terrible fires back home, and just my mind has been somewhere else the last couple days. In cricket, I mentioned it earlier. I said great players find a way to take wickets, and it's just something that we have to do. It doesn't matter whether the track is green or flat or the field is big or small, we'll find a way. The game will always evolve. It's just the life of a bowler, I guess. And batters will serve to find ways to score runs with field changes and so on. So it really doesn't matter. But I do feel for the bowlers. There have been some massive scores scored in this World Cup so far. There are stats that in the last World Cup there weren't even four scores or three scores over 300, and already in this World Cup we've seen scores over 400, so a lot of runs. In saying that, we took 10 and 10, so we found a way to get wickets, so hopefully we'll continue to find a way to take wickets. Q. You made your first class debut with AB, and your test debut with AB. How have you seen him develop into probably the most complete batsman in the world right now? DALE STEYN: Oh, man, it's like watching The Matrix movie, really. There is Neo for you right there. Like he just doesn't understand how good he is. When he first made his debut in first class cricket, I remember him scoring 50 and 50 on the dot. That was against Western Province or whatever it was. And walking back into the change room and going that wasn't that difficult at all. I think he's actually figured out now that he is like -- there is no roof or cap on how good he can possibly be. He's limitless in what he can do. He's one of those players that's proven in this year especially just how good he is. I think he's starting to realize that now. Players around the world, bowlers are struggling to find a way to get this guy out. The only way to get him out is when he gets himself out. He's that good at the moment. Yeah, hopefully we can see more players like him because it does make the game more entertaining to watch. Q. Dale, whenever bowlers get a bit of depth in tournaments like this, experts say where have the yorkers gone? How hard is it to bowl those yorkers in situations like that? DALE STEYN: Yeah, it's a difficult delivery to bowl. I think it's even more difficult to bowl now because we've brought two new balls into the game which is great because it does swing up front. Back a couple years ago when you only used one ball, when you bowled a yorker in the 45th over, the ball was 45 overs old. Slightly softer, and not as easy to get away. Now the ball is 25 overs old, it's still pretty hard and pretty new. If you missed your yorker by just that much, it travels a long way in the field like we've got out here today. If you missed your yorker bowling straight, the straight boundaries are 40-odd meters. That is a chip and it's six. So bowlers tend to get nervous about using the yorker. Even more so in 20 Twenty cricket. You forget in 20 Twenty cricket the ball is only 20 overs old. So the ball is really hard and can clear the ropes, so a lot of mocking has come in. Just trying to fake where you're going to bowl. Set it lake side field and bowl a yorker kind of thing is happening. You're trying to outsmart batters. Execution is a massive thing, but I think we're starting to realize if bowlers can go to eight runs and over in the last 10 overs, you're actually doing a pretty good job. Q. Dale, just how much stress were you in and maybe a message to the firefighters and the job that they did? DALE STEYN: It wasn't easy. I was actually staying in Canberra and woke up and I left my phone on silent that night. So I woke up that morning and had like 80 messages or something, 30 missed calls. So I quickly jumped on it and realized the fires were a lot closer to my home than initially thought. The scariest part came about 3:30 in the morning in Cape Town. I don't know what time it was in Canberra. But the people looking after my house called me and said, listen, you've got five minutes we're evacuating. What do you want us to take out of your house? I've never been more scared in my life. I'm sitting halfway across the world, and everything that I've ever earned or gotten in my life, every wicket, every ball, every bit of clothing in my 31 years is in that house. So it was pretty scary to think what do you tell this person? They've got five minutes to take everything out. I was pretty much shitting myself. Yeah, just tremendous job by all those firefighters and the volunteers that put their lives at risk and never met me before, never met most of the people. They were just kind of like throwing themselves at it and putting out those fires. Got another guy sitting over there and I'm sure he was as nervous as I was. Paul's house, his lawn was on fire. If I was at home I'd dive straight into it and do what I can to help. It really is terrible. A lot of animals, pets, homes, nobody should go through that kind of stuff. It's a pretty tough time back home right now. Q. Can I just ask, obviously, we're getting towards the end of pool play. Lot of people trying to work out the permutations of who is going to play who. I know there is a lot of cricket to be played. But there is a possibility you'll be back here for a semifinal against New Zealand. I know there is a lot of cricket to be played. But at the moment how your team is playing and how the Black Caps are playing, how do you feel about that prospect? DALE STEYN: I don't mind who we play to be honest. If we prepare well and play good cricket we should be fine. You say we're going to play in Auckland? Yeah, I wouldn't mind. I think the last two times we played New Zealand, yeah, we beat them, so that should be pretty cool. I know they know that. I guess everyone's probably going to say the last time we played in a semifinal or quarterfinal against New Zealand we lost, so that is also against us, but a new side. Four years have come down the road. I feel like we're playing some good cricket. We're just starting to figure out a way to put in some big hurdles. The last two games we scored 400 and 400. Like I said, we took the wickets. We're just trying to figure out how to put this puzzle together. I think we're actually finding a way to do that. Everything's coming together quite nicely. So we're looking forward to those quarterfinals, semis and hopefully a final. Q. At the start you talked about yourself, how you feel like you're getting better and better. Do you feel in some ways that you personify how this team is progressing through the World Cup? DALE STEYN: Yeah, kind of. I think myself I've said it before many times that I don't care if I take one wicket or five wickets. Obviously, I'd love to take five because every game that I play, everyone wants to. World Cups, I want to be the leading wicket taker. I'm not. I want to lead from the front, but that's what I'll do. I don't care whether I'll take one wicket or five. As long as I'm doing the job my team requires and we're winning games, I know that when I walk off the field, my captain and my coach and bowling coach is still coming to me saying thank you. You did an amazing job. That's all that I can hope for. If I take the wickets, then that's what I really want to. But if I don't, I'm just going to find a way to contribute. If they need 7 of the last four over, I'm going to make sure they score three. If we need two wickets to win, I'll get those two wickets. I'll do what I need to do to win games for my team. It hasn't gone the way that I want to, but I feel it's getting better and better. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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