South Africa’s Dale Steyn ready to sacrifice pace for fitness

Dale Steyn said that running and bowling at a pace of 145kph will be tough

South Africa’s fast bowler Dale Steyn, who has been struggling with a number of injuries, is planning to focus more on fitness than his pace. The bowler has a reputation of troubling batsmen with his pace bowl to such extent that he almost pushes the batsman on their backfoot with his bowl.

The 33-year old bowler has bad luck with injuries. Steyn was out of the Test series which took place in India last year due to an injury. The South African said that he is targeting to bowl for 18 overs a day to maintain his fitness, even though it may affect his pace.  

The South African bowler said that it would be tough for him to consistently bowl at pace. Steyn said: "If I must be realistic about it, running in and bowling 145kph all day when you haven't done it for a long time is going to be really tough.”

The bowler added, ”Objective number one is to get through 18 overs a day, maybe dropping in pace, but being as effective as possible. 140 is going to be enough.”

The pacer also made a comparison between the super fast automobile Ferrari and his bowling. Steyn said, "As I recovered from one (injury), I broke down on the other one and it’s only because I was going from 0 to 100 way too quickly. If you look at your fast cars, Ferraris, they always tell you drive it to 1000 kays (kms) before you hit 200-plus.

“I obviously didn't put in 100 kays, I was just trying to hit 200 and then I bust the shoulder. There's going to be a day when I can rev it up to 145 and maybe even 150 but we've got somebody like KG (Kagiso Rabada) who can do that now.”

Dale Steyn’s performance was affected due to injuries and so was South Africa’s results. The team failed to win consecutively starting from the Test series in India, home Test series against England and they even could not qualify for the tri-series final in the Caribbean.

The pacer mentioned that he would be missing the captaincy of AB de Villers, which will be filled up by Faf du Plessis. The pacer also hoped that the team will be in the number one position one day.

With Steyn’s new aims and targets, the world is going to witness a new and different version of him in the upcoming two-match Test series against New Zealand which is going to begin in Durban.

Here is a video of Steyn’s bowling prowess when fit.