Dale Steyn: Twitter slams South African legend over his harsh comments on Bangladesh in

Dale Steyn: Twitter slams Steyn for his harsh comments on Bangladesh after South Africa’s loss against Bangladesh in World Cup 2019.

Arguably South Africa’s most successful bowler across all formats, Dale Steyn is currently in the news, not for his lethal bowling skills, but for the comments he made way back in the year 2015, and which suddenly holds relevance now- 4 years hence.

In case you are unaware (which is fine considering the one-sided matches we have had in the World Cup so far), Bangladesh did exactly what they are capable of against formidable cricketing sides. They defeated the mighty South Africans by 21 runs in their opening match of the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.

Dale Steyn and Hashim Amla were not featuring in yesterday’s encounter for South Africa, owing to injuries. While Amla played in the Proteas’ first match against England, Steyn has still not recovered yet to commence his World Cup campaign.

But, the veteran South African bowler’s comment pertaining to Bangladesh in 2015, has been surfaced on the internet, and proves the ill-effects of commenting anything in this age of information and technology.

What had Steyn commented?

Just moments post the humiliating Proteas defeat against the Bangladesh on Sunday (June 2), the 35-year-old’s comments way back in 2015 have been unearthed out of the archives.

In an interview with Wisden back in 2015, Steyn had commented that playing against Bangladesh wouldn’t help his confidence and that he would rather save himself for the major tournaments rather than ‘wasting few balls’ against them.

These old comments from the Veteran has found him on the receiving end of the Twitteratis, as they left no stones unturned to troll him. Steyn had made these comments prior the South African tour of Bangladesh for a 3-match ODI series. He had back then written off teams like Bangladesh and Zimbabwe and was of the view that, playing against the aforementioned would do no good to his confidence.

“It might sound very cocky or naïve of me, or self-centred, but I want to win a World Cup for my country. And they only come around once every four years. If you’re playing in the Twenty20 World Cup, luckily they come around every year”, Steyn exclaimed.

“So with all due respect to places like Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, going and playing three ODIs in Bangladesh does nothing for my confidence as opposed to knowing that I’m going to a World Cup,” Steyn had added while in conversation with Wisden India.

“Would use the 10,000-20,000 deliveries left in big tournaments”-Steyn

Steyn has had a string of injuries in most parts of his career, and thus felt that was nearing his days of retirement even at the age of 30-31. He thus felt that it would rather be viable for him to focus his tunnel vision for the quadrennial tournament.

“At this stage of my career, I’d rather be saving myself to go and participate in the major tournaments, rather than wasting the few balls I have left in my career in a Bangladesh match. I’d rather go to Bangladesh to help and support future South African bowlers, and use what is left of the 10,000 or 20,000 deliveries that I have left in my body for the big tournament”, Steyn said.

Dale Steyn might commence his World Cup campaign against India, in South Africa’s third match of the tournament on June 5.

But, his aforementioned comments 4 years ago, is testament to old phrase- “Act in haste and repent in leisure”. Steyn would certainly be repenting for his comments now, after his team’s dismal performance against the team he had written off earlier. What a leveller, this game is!

Look how Twitter reacted on Dale Steyn’s comments: