South African speedster Dale Steyn’s happiness knew no bounds yesterday when he claimed his 400th Test wicket during the opening day of the second and final Test against Bangladesh at Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium.
Here are the excerpts from yesterday’s post-day press conference where he expressed his elation upon joining the 400-club:
Is this the best moment of your life?
No, I have to be honest with you. That’s about it really. Most definitely not. I have never been a stats person. It’s nice to have them numbers but there have been a lot better moments in my cricketing career. Winning games for my country has always been my number one objective so yeah, job’s not over. It’s cool. It’s nice to have 400.....(laughs away)
You did not celebrate much after getting your 400th Test wicket. Any reasons behind that?
I don’t know. It’s a mix of different emotions really. I don’t really know what to say. It’s pretty cool to take the wickets and get the headband off and get the hair off. I think I have taken some abuse about my hair. That doesn’t influence my bowling at all.
You have taken 400 wickets faster than the likes of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Wasim Akram, among others. Have you ever thought of taking 400 wickets this early in your career?
I just want to play every game. I want to bowl again [today]. I want to bowl again the next time South Africa pick me. Anything can happen, I don’t set targets. I would have been happy if I had taken just one wicket in my international career. It’s enough to play for South Africa and take wickets for South Africa. And then I managed to get 400. I never thought that this would ever happen in my life.
So, I just want to bowl, man. I have said that many times before, and I probably sound like a broken record. I just repeat myself. But I just love bowling. Just give me the ball and if I am fit and I am strong, I will bowl all day. So there’s no targets. It’s not like I want to take 500 or I want to play 100 Tests. I just want to bowl.
How would you assess the first day for South Africa?
Yeah, look, it was a good day for us, we always knew that once we got them to six-down. Their lower-order batters don’t tend to like hanging around. Those are wickets we can wrap up quickly. It’s not wrapped up yet but that was the initial goal. And throughout the day, we didn’t let them get away with the game. It’s quite difficult conditions to bat and bowl, because the ball gets pretty soft and the economy rate never got higher than 2.8.
