Irrespective of the field, having mutual admiration for each other is a common sign exhibited by great personalities. When it comes to competitive sport, bowing down to a competitor’s prowess is not everyone’s cup of tea. However, in the case of Indian captain Rohit Sharma and former South African fast bowler Dale Steyn, the two legendary cricketers have readily admitted about each other’s domination in their head-to-head battle on more occasions than one.
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As far as the latest instances are concerned, both Sharma and Steyn have been wax lyrical of each other within the last couple of days. While Sharma had acknowledged Steyn’s ability to swing the ball at high pace in an interview with journalist Vimal Kumar, Steyn had reciprocated the admiration during his ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 commentary stint for host broadcaster Star Sports Network.
Having Dismissed Rohit Sharma Just Once In International Cricket, Dale Steyn Admits Struggle Against Indian Captain
One of the many star-studded commentators for the imminent World Cup beginning October 5, Steyn is currently deployed in Thiruvananthapuram for the warm-up matches. With rain washing out the first two matches in the city, Steyn was left with a lot of media-related work which witnessed him sharing views on Sharma.
“I always struggled to bowl against Rohit [Sharma]. He is a phenomenal batter, leading the team from the front,” Sharma told Star Sports.
If truth be told, Steyn acknowledging struggle against Sharma has come as quite a surprise. Although the right-arm bowler has dismissed the right-handed batter just once across 18 innings at the highest level, there is no major evidence of him getting dominated by the latter.
For the unversed, the only time Steyn had dismissed Sharma was for a first-ball duck during the first innings of 2013’s Boxing Day Test in Durban. In spite of mostly facing Steyn in ODIs, Sharma’s strike rate of 63.24 against this bowler in this particular format puts on display the difference between the two.
Rohit Sharma Concedes Getting Challenged By Dale Steyn
Sharma, who had spoken against repeating ICC Cricket World Cup 2019’s script this time round in an interview uploaded on Vimal Kumar’s YouTube channel earlier this week, took to the same platform to concede how Steyn used to successfully challenge him during his playing days.
Hailing Steyn’s class and skills, Sharma brought to light how he seldom used to err from his length as a pacer. A classic case of Steyn’s command over Sharma dates back to Indian Premier League 2012 when the legendary Sunil Gavaskar had sang a Hindi song during live commentary to brutally troll the batter as he was looking out of sorts against Steyn.
“If a bowler challenged me and I had fun playing against him, it has to be Dale Steyn. He never deviated from the ideal length. He used to swing [the ball] at a high pace. There are a few bowlers who make the ball swing above 140 [kmph].”
Speaking particularly of their IPL head-to-head battle, Sharma could only scored 37 (46) at a strike rate of 80.43 across nine innings against Steyn.
