Dale Steyn sends heartfelt message to fans, picks 1992, '96, '99 WC's as favorites and talks about home fitness
South Africa speedster Dale Steyn opened about the current virus crisis in the world and how it has affected cricket globally. Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Steyn opened about the personal struggles he had to go through while staying in a coronavirus-forced "hotel arrest" in Pakistan recently.
Steyn, who represented the Proteas in 265 matches and claimed 699 international wickets, revealed his fitness routine during the home break and how he is also focused on his fitness.
"The one thing that I need to continuously do is, I got to look after my body. I've got to do the rehab and a little bit of strength work, and I've got to keep my fitness up. So here at the house, we've got a couple of bit of weights lying around, and we've got some bands that I use for my shoulder workouts and stuff like that, and I'm surfing a lot and we can go for a run. So fitness is not an issue."
Steyn explained how mentally tough it was to keep waiting for clarity over the next possible event. He stated that there might come a situation when he will have to resume training if a tournament like IPL was going to be played. He especially mentioned the first-ever ODI between South Africa and Australia wherein both teams crossed the 400-run mark to create history.
"I'm just kind of waiting for the next thing to find out what it is and how long it is before they require us to be there. If I've got to go to the IPL in a week from now, then tomorrow I'll just jump into it. I will head down to the indoor nets and I'll get going, but if I don't know what's happening right now, I'm just trying to keep myself fit and keep myself fresh and healthy really."
Moving over to lighter stuff, Steyn picked 1992, '96, '99 WC's as his favourites to watch while being stuck at home, with each of them reminding of his association with South African Cricket from the '90s.
"I would probably say that they should put every World Cup up until '99 on. So 1992, '96, '99 - I love those World Cups. And even the one in South Africa [2003] because that's when I really started to get into guys like Brett Lee, because I knew the possibility of me playing against them or meeting them was so much closer than what it was in, say, '92, when I first got introduced to the game. I was watching Jonty [Rhodes] dive and do those amazing run-outs and Wasim [Akram] reversing the ball all over the place. It would be quite nostalgic to sit down and watch."
"Bring that back. With respect to all the teams that are playing right now, I genuinely don't want to watch guys going and thumping 400. I want to go back to a time when the ball was reversing and the game looked a lot more interesting. Yeah, that's just my opinion."
Steyn also sent a heartful message to the fans and urged them to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.
"Stay healthy, wash your hands, look after yourself, don't be greedy. Right now they are saying old people are really struggling, so if in a position to help, rather help them than help yourself. Pretty simple, really."