Despite being an aggressive speedster on the field, Steyn is a quite humble and generous character off the field. A glimpse of such was recently seen when the Proteas paceman took part in a chat show of ESPNcricinfo.
During the show, Steyn got emotional when he saw a clip of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) young bowler Shivam Mavi calling him his idol. Mavi said that he had followed Steyn ever since he started playing cricket. The right armer asserted that he does follow some other bowlers such as Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, but his idol has always been Steyn.
“Ever since I began playing the sport, I used to follow Dale Steyn very closely. When I started bowling,” said Mavi.
“I used to be able to bowl outswingers, and I used to follow Dale Steyn while trying to learn how to bowl. I follow the tactics of some other bowlers too, such as Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar, but my idol has always been Dale Steyn,” he added.
After listening to Mavi’s special words, Steyn got teary-eyed. The veteran pacer mentioned he never expected that he could leave an impact on people living in different parts of the world.
“It’s pretty amazing, man. Almost actually brings a tear to my eyes, to be honest with you, I am not going to lie. It’s fantastic. I never ever expected to play this game and have an impact on people that live on the opposite ends of the world. I still play, which is still great; I still love playing,” said Steyn.
“But that’s amazing. I hope that he (Mavi) can push on, and these kinds of performances will get him into teams that he wants to play for, India, and also play a bigger part for Kolkata. That’s amazing. I would love to get in touch with him at some point; that would be a dream come true for me too,” added the 37-year-old.
Here is the video:
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