From the Vault | EP 1 - Dale Steyn smashes Michael Vaughan to pieces on Test debut
Getty
December 17, 2004 is a landmark day for South Africa. The sun shone brightly over Port Elizabeth and SA were preparing itself for a dawn that changed their cricket forever. AB de Villiers and Dale Styen’s Test debut, in hindsight, was the exact thing South Africa waited for long.
In the 1990s, when South Africa were hit by the match-fixing scandal, fans were given a profoundly personal heartbreak which was, of course, a stunning betrayal by a man who had represented an idealized vision of acceptance and racial harmony. Hansie Cronje's fall was a big one for South Africa and to pick themselves up from the debris, they needed a person who could deal with it and at the same time, guide them back to the sport for the love of it.
Graeme Smith and Shaun Pollock were the men, as was Gary Kirsten but 20 years down the line, it is safe to assume that none had contributed the South Africans fall in love with the game more than Steyn and de Villiers. As the maxim goes, “morning shows the day”, South Africans had probably seen that morning on the 19th December 2004 when Steyn, with seven first-class matches to his name, of which only five were played at franchise level, streamed in and bowled an out-swinger that beat the outside edge of the English skipper.
There was nothing special in it - you think and only then you are wrong. As Vaughan moved forward a bit, Steyn’s ball moved away from him as late as ever, bamboozling him, leaving the off-stump go for a walk. What happened after that left as one of the most iconic images in sporting history as the pacer unleashed his chainsaw celebration, which indeed became his trademark one in the times to come.
It could easily have been a flash in the pan. But Steyn, in a glorious career that spanned over 15 years, produced many of those moments for the fans to cherish and walked away from red-ball cricket with the tag of “The greatest fast bowler ever lived” more or less firmly attached on his back. It might not be difficult to break his wicket-tally, but building a legacy like that will never be anyone's cup of tea.
