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| Dale Steyn is
ICC Test Player of the Year |
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September
10, 2008
 South
Africa's express Fast bowler Dale Steyn has been honoured with
the ICC Test Player of the Year 2008. The 25-year-old received
the award from former West Indian Captain Clive Lloyd in the
fifth ICC Awards ceremony that was held in Dubai today.
Steyn had got the award ahead of the other
three nominees who were Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Mahela
Jayawardena and his own team-mate
Jacques Kallis. During the 12-month voting
period, Steyn had taken as many as 86 wickets while averaging
just 18.10 in the 14 Test matches he played. Incredibly, there
was no other bowler matching his destruction as none had taken
more than 58 wickets in the same period and Steyn was also the
only bowler to earn an average less than 21.50 (of those who
played more than three matches). Steyn had a superb strike
rate of 31.9 during this period. It was quite a show from the
fast bowler, who showed that not only could he get wickets on
the tailor-made South African tracks but also on the slow
docile pitches in the sub continent. The success factor for
Steyn is that he can swing the ball, reverse swing it both
ways at a deadly pace.
Dale Steyn after collecting the award said:
“I have had a pretty decent year I suppose but I didn’t think
about winning this award until the past few days. I don’t
really know how I feel. Perhaps tomorrow morning it will have
sunk in for me because obviously this is a huge award and it’s
massive for me.
“What I would like to do is maybe turn it into a goal for the
future. I would like to win this award again and maybe other
awards too so it would be something to aim for.
“I am really enjoying my cricket at the moment – we have been
involved in a few great series recently so I count myself as
lucky to be a part of this South Africa team.
“It’s a good time for South African cricket even though we
lost four one-day matches in England. Winning this award makes
up a little for that but I am still going home knowing we were
beaten in the one-dayers. But we have some new faces coming
into the one-day side and we are still very positive for the
future.”
The past winners of the ICC Test Player of
the Year were Rahul Dravid (2004), Jacques Kallis (2005),
Ricky Ponting (2006) and Mohammad Yousuf (2007).
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