“A lot of guys want to get onto the international scene to get recognised and go to the IPL” - Dale Steyn on players’ changing priorities.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
If something’s missing from this year’s IPL, aside from electrifying crowds and the comparative lightness of being part of a world not in the overarching grip of a vicious pandemic, it may be this: where is Dale Steyn?
The tournament and Steyn have helped define each other in the public imagination. Little wonder considering this generation’s most watchable fast bowler was a central figure for the first nine editions of cricket’s most watchable event. Shoulder injuries took him out of the mix in 2017 and 2018, and he played only two games in 2019 and just three last year. So it’s not the first time Steyn isn’t charging in, veins bulging, eyes whirling, chainsaw celebration twitching in its unseen scabbard, to visit violence on the game’s best batters. But his absence this time feels different — a metaphor for who and what we’ve lost. And will yet lose.
In this interview he allows glimpses into his world beyond cricket. It was conducted after Covid-19 had changed all of our lives but well before the second wave had started ripping through India, ending so many lives. There’s no Steyn at the IPL this year, but here, as a balm of sorts, a lilt to lift all, is some of his freewheeling magic:
What’s going on?
“I had to quickly go and drop off my car for a service, so I sat in a little bit of Cape Town traffic. But otherwise I’m home sitting on the balcony and enjoying this beautiful day. The wind has been pumping here these last couple of days, so it’s nice to wake up and have a still day like this. I thought my roof was going to blow off yesterday.
And otherwise, how’re you doing?
“Can’t complain. Just carrying on. I’m enjoying the free time, but somehow I keep finding myself even more busy. I get home and I’m dog dad, and don’t forget the car needs a service, and the house has some problem, and … ja. Although I’m not playing I’m still crazy busy.”
Welcome to real life.
“That’s exactly what it is. There’s no more police escort when I’ve got to get to the airport. I have to sit in traffic like everybody else. But it’s actually quite lekker. I quite enjoy it. It feels normal.”
Are you going to miss playing in the IPL?
“This year, ja. The biggest things I will miss are the competitiveness of playing, and the structure of playing all the time. It’s nice when you know this is scheduled and that’s what’s coming up. The unknown, for me, is sometimes daunting. So I am going to miss that feeling when you know you’re going to be playing against Chris Gayle or AB de Villiers, or whoever it is, the next day.”
I suppose, with the IPL’s schedule of play, travel, play, maybe train, there’s no time to think.
“Ja, but it’s changing now. For a lot of us, we’re so used to that way of doing things. But last year’s IPL was something I’d never experienced before. You go from the ground to the hotel, and you sit at the hotel. And then you go from the hotel to the ground. Sometimes you’re not part of the playing XI or the 14 who go to the ground. So they tell you you don’t have to be at the ground at all. You’ve spent the last four or five days at the hotel because there hasn’t been any training, and then you can’t even go to the ground. That whole experience was really hard to deal with. Hopefully they’ll find ways to make it better. In India there will be a lot more opportunities for practising. Last year was really tight. You wouldn’t practise and then you’d have a game. They would fling it on you: ‘You’re playing tomorrow!’ And you would say, ‘I haven’t practised in a week! I haven’t left the hotel in a week! But let’s go!’ I think everyone felt that last year.”
You’ve been around long enough to remember when the IPL didn’t exist. Can you compare cricket before the IPL and now?
“I can’t even remember what it was like. Before the IPL the biggest thing was wanting to play for your country. Then, when the first IPL came, I remember our administrators taking us aside and talking about how important it was to not go and play in these leagues. There was a bunch of guys who said they weren’t going to do it. Then some guys went to the IPL, and it was like, ‘Hang on a second: this is really going to change the game.’ When I got to the IPL I remember walking in and having to share a dressingroom with guys like Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble, and I’d actually just played against them. Rahul had smashed a hundred against us in Chennai. He was going to be the captain of RCB, and while he was batting and I was bowling him a bouncer, I was like, ‘I’ve got you, captain! I’ve got you, skip!’ It was the start of the jokes between players, and the start of a whole other ballgame. You didn’t know who your next teammate was going to be, or who your next captain was going to be. But you knew that somebody really good was going to be in the dressingroom with you, which was exciting. As long as that kind of thing doesn’t get lost, then the IPL will always be a good place for players to learn.”
A lot of people moan about what the IPL is doing to cricket. But we also need to think about how much it’s improved cricket; made it a better product for spectators.
“I had never been to games that had been that sold out: 80,000, 70,000, 100,000 people. I got the opportunity to play in front of a crowd that big if I played for South Africa against Australia at the MCG, or if we played against India and you knew Sachin was going to be playing at a big ground. The IPL brings everyone in. You turn the TV on and you see how many people are watching the game — you can hear the noise through the screen. It does make people sit down and actually watch the game. I never became numb to it. After eight, nine or 10 years of doing it, I was still standing at the top of my mark, trying to get the attention of mid-off, and I still had the same feeling as at the very beginning. It was bloody scary. And amazing, absolutely great, at the same time.”
Other aspects of the tournament have surely changed?
“In the first IPL we never knew what was going to happen. There was a coach and there was kind of like a fitness trainer. Through the years it’s got more and more and more professional. To the point where somebody is appointed to take care of every part of the game. You have a fielding coach and a batting coach, like all the international teams. Three months before the IPL starts they contact you and make sure you know what’s happening. They ask for your schedule, so they can fit it in with theirs. So when you get there, boom: you know what going on and you fit in easily. I think international teams have started to take aspects of that kind of planning to improve their own set-up. It’s been a crazy journey, and it’s been done in a very short space of time.”
Could any other country besides India, with any other cricket culture, have made the IPL the success it has become?
“No. There’s no other region in which cricket is bigger, and in which people have as big a love for the game. Subcontinent countries absolutely love cricket. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India are crazy for the game. In Australia and New Zealand, you’ve got rugby and footy and all these other games. Cricket is there, too, obviously. But in the subcontinent it feels like there’s only cricket. With India having more than a billion people on its own, I don’t think the IPL would be the same anywhere else in the world. Maybe the Caribbean has that kind of feel, but it just doesn’t have the magnitude of numbers. They also have a genuine love for the game, which you can feel when you go there — you can hear the old man who’s been standing in the same spot in the ground since 1970 shouting, ‘Bowl ’em bouncers and bumpers!’ — but you feel it a hundred times more when you’re in India. There’s only one country that could have pulled it off.”
And of course the money is in India.
“That helps massively. If you look at AB de Villiers, who’s the best player in the world, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who’s the best player in the world, it was chalk and cheese in terms of what they were earning until the IPL came along. It’s only fair that that has changed. It’s great to see that other leagues are starting to do that. But you can ask anyone playing in those other leagues what their ultimate goal is, and they’ll say, ‘I’m at this league to try and win for my team, but I want to do well so I can go to that big league; so that I can play in the IPL.’”
What chance do you think you have of playing in another IPL?
“I’m still playing. I’m doing the smaller tournaments at the moment, because I’m probably going to get more opportunity to play in them. I think when you’re not playing for your country you quickly get forgotten. It was a concern of mine when I was still playing for South Africa. I had a chat with my agent. He was like, ‘Maybe you should retire.’ I’m like, ‘I’m worried that if I retire I might not get taken seriously as a cricket to go to the IPL anymore.’ I think that’s exactly what happened. So I’ve got to go to leagues where I know there’s a 99% chance that I’m going to play every single game. If I went to the IPL this year I probably wouldn’t have played, just like I didn’t play [much] last year. If I’ve got one or two years left in me I want to be playing more than I’m sitting on the sidelines. If I go to a couple of leagues this year and I do well and dominate, then next year there might be an IPL team that thinks there’s a role for me; a team that’s going to give me a run — not a game here and there. That’s hit or miss. If I want to win the purple cap I’ve got to play every game. There could be a chance next year, but for this year I felt that if I wanted to be taken more seriously I’ve got to play more cricket. But with the pandemic it makes it really difficult. I don’t want to spend most of my time sitting in quarantine. So you’ve got to weigh it up. But maybe there’s one more IPL for me. Let’s see.”
It’s almost as if international cricket has become the shop window for the IPL, and not the other way round.
“In the beginning they would pick IPL teams based on international performances. I think that still happens, but they also pick guys from other leagues. Dawid Malan has snuck in. Rashid Khan wasn’t exactly playing much for Afghanistan, but he was playing in every league around the world and Tom Moody picked him up and he went to the IPL. And, boom, he’s the next big thing. I think the other leagues also offer opportunities for coaches, and whoever it is selecting players for the IPL, to say there’s a guy worth having. A lot of guys want to get onto the international scene to get recognised and go to the IPL. But a lot of others don’t. Hashim Amla dominated for South Africa but never got much of an IPL gig. Rassie van der Dussen has done really well for South Africa and yet he doesn’t get a gig. So it boils down to what the IPL coaches want. They get what they want.”
Do you have any ambitions to coach in the IPL?
“Coaching is a whole ’nother story! All I’ve ever done is play cricket. I’ve been really good at it, luckily. But the thing I would want to get better at is learning how to deliver the message. Sometimes we take someone who’s been a great player and make him a coach, and the players don’t get much out of his coaching even though he was an amazing player. I don’t want to be that kind of coach. I’ve heard of coaches who walk down the wicket and say, ‘All you need to do is play the reverse sweep to this fast bowler’ — at 150 kays an hour — ‘it’s not difficult.’ The player wants to say, ‘I’m not you. Could you break it down a little more?’ Guys like Duncan Fletcher and Gary Kirsten are amazing at breaking it down. Those are guys who can really coach. I’d want to get better at that first. Maybe I’ll coach some school teams. If I’m going to coach I want to do it because I’m the best coach, not because I had a good career as a player. I might have to do some homework when it comes to coaching, and learn how to deliver a message and coach someone properly. But that means travelling and all that kind of stuff. So maybe at a later stage.”
While the wind’s not blowing you’d better get out and surf, or something.
“I’m actually going to sneak out to Kommetjie [a noted Cape Town surf spot] now. Last year, while I was at the IPL, the worst thing happened. I was away for 80-something days. I’ve got a place in Kommetjie which has an outside room that’s never been locked. For some reason my mom locked it and lost the key. I came back and it had rained a lot, and I didn’t have the time to open it. I finally did a month ago, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks like a forest in there it’s got so much mould. I’m finally fixing it. Also, I’ve put my house on the market. So I’m slowly going through stuff down in my garage. And I’m finding bags I haven’t seen since 2005.”
It’s always difficult finding space for all your stuff.
“You could always come and put it in Faf’s house. I was there last week, and I’ve never been in a house that big before. I needed ways to find my way around. I got completely lost!”
First published by Cricbuzz.
Excellent peice. Dale Steyn is one of my favorite cricketers. Thank you.
Thanks Kyle.