Dale Steyn said he wanted to improve as a bowler after claiming his second successive 10-wicket haul as South Africa crushed New Zealand by an innings and 59 runs on the third day of the second and final Test against New Zealand at Centurion Park on Sunday.
The 24-year-old has rocketed into the top 10 of the world Test bowling rankings but said he didn't believe he had yet "arrived" as a world-class bowler despite taking 71 wickets in his first 15 Tests.
The fast bowler, consistently bowling at more than 145kph and making the ball swing away from right-handed batsmen, took a career-best six for 49 as New Zealand were shot out for 136 in their second innings.
PHOTO: AFP
His match figures of 10 for 91 were two runs better than his 10 for 93 in the first Test in Johannesburg, which South Africa won by 358 runs.
He was man of the match in both Tests and took the man of the series award.
"I'm just doing what I have to do, getting the ball in the right places and communicating well with my captain," he said.
He gave credit to the support staff including the video analysts.
"The guys off the field prepare these things so we can see the strengths and weaknesses of our opponents. We have bowled to a plan," Steyn said.
Captain Graeme Smith said Steyn had bowled "superbly" but said the credit had to be shared with the rest of the bowlers.
"He's bowled at pace with good control and he's got the ball to swing. But the other guys have worked around him pretty well which has allowed him to come back at different times and strike. I like to know that he's hungry for more success," Smith said.
Smith said South Africa had played "really good Test cricket" in winning a two-match series in Pakistan last month as well as hammering New Zealand.
New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori admitted that the series had been a tough start to his career as Test skipper.
"It doubles up after the performance we put up at the Wanderers. We thought we could come back and fight a little bit harder here but unfortunately we delivered a similarly inept performance," he said.
Vettori said the bowling of Steyn and the batting partnerships between Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, who both scored two centuries in the series, had "set the two teams apart."
"We need to play more Test cricket. It's also got to come down to individuals, to increase skill levels and desire. We need to put performances together against quality opposition. We've got Bangladesh coming up next," Vettori said.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with