Dale Steyn has been one of the world’s most fearsome pace bowlers of all-time. The South African quick retired from Test cricket in 2019 after becoming the highest wicket-taker for South Africa with 439 scalps. In one of the Sky Sports’ latest podcast along with James Anderson and Dale Steyn, the latter revealed one of his unlucky incidents while playing against India in 2010.
Steyn reminisced an incident when Sachin scored his maiden ODI double hundred against the Proteas at Gwalior in 2010. The speedster felt that he was unlucky to not get Sachin LBW while he was batting in his 190s after umpire Ian Gould adjudged him not out. According to him, Gould was reluctant to give Sachin out citing reasons of it making difficult for him to return to the hotel that night. However, the facts reveal that it was a concocted story by Steyn as nothing happened on those lines in the entire match.
The Steyn story does not hold true to the facts
While Steyn believes that Tendulkar was plumb LBW when he was in 190s, the truth completely quashes his claims. Sachin faced a mere three deliveries off Steyn while he was nearing the landmark figure, and fortunately, all three of them were played by the bat.
In fact, in the entire match, Sachin faced a total of 31 deliveries bowled to him by Steyn. There was only once in the entire Indian innings that Steyn managed to hit Sachin’s pad when the batsman was on 25 in the 7th over of the innings. On that day, the ‘Master Blaster’ scored 37 runs off his bowling while 16 balls fetched him no run.
What a story,Mr. Steyn ??
– You bowled 3 balls to #SachinTendulkar when he was in 190s. All 3 were played with the bat.
– These were the only balls you bowled to him after he crossed 150.
– None of the 31 balls you bowled to him in the entire match produced a close lbw shout. pic.twitter.com/wKWZFUWvaY— Rajneesh Gupta (@rgcricket) May 16, 2020
While one can discount him on his memory, during that period between 2010 and 2011, there was only once when he managed to get a close LBW call against Sachin. The incident occurred when the Mumbaikar was batting on 92 in the Nagpur Test in 2010 and survived a close call off Steyn. Co-incidentally, Gould was again umpiring in the Test match at Nagpur when the hosts faced an innings defeat in the first Test.
Taking each of the above-mentioned facts into consideration, it can be assumed that Steyn’s claim against Sachin’s dream knock proves to be factually incorrect. Also, in that game, Steyn was clobbered to all parts of the ground while he conceded 89 runs in his spell of 10 overs. It was an awful outing for the visitors as they faced a proper hammering by 153 runs while Sachin became the first player to register a double century in ODIs.
