When Dale Steyn, who announced his retirement from all formats on Tuesday, came to India in 2008 as part of the South African team, not many gave him a chance. The Indian batting line-up - led by the Fab Four - was still going great guns.
And when Virender Sehwag thrashed a triple hundred in the high-scoring draw in Chennai, one felt Steyn wouldn't make much of an impact in the series.
Then Ahmedabad happened. The South African tearaway, bowling on a belter at Motera, blew away India for 76 in a spell of outstanding fast bowling. The rhythmic run-up, the pace and the swing, everything culminated into a memorable performance, something that Indian cricket fans haven't yet forgotten.
There was more in store two years later in Nagpur, when he got 7/51, setting up another Test win for the Proteas. It's not a coincidence that he has got a fabulous record against India - 103 of his 439 Test wickets coming against the subcontinental giants.
"He was basically like James Anderson at a greater pace. Steyn was just unplayable in those matches. If I had to pick one pace bowler of that generation, it has to be Steyn. Pace, accuracy and ability to bowl long spells in trying conditions, Steyn was just a complete package. Add to that his ability to reverse swing the ball," former India offspinner Harbhajan Singh, who was one of Steyn's victims in the second innings of that Motera Test, told TOI.
The paceman had already announced in 2019 that he wouldn't be playing Test match cricket anymore. Injuries were taking toll and he had only played three T20s for South Africa in the last two years and a few games here and there in franchise cricket across the world.
Steyn had said after his Test retirement that he would reassess his career after the T20 World Cup in 2020 that got postponed to 2021 due to Covid. There was probably that desire to win an ICC trophy that had eluded this generation of South African cricketers who had taken over post the debacle of the 2003 World Cup and the Hansie Cronje match-fixing era.
But it was not to be. One still remembers the anguish of Steyn when he couldn't stop Grant Elliot from pulling off an incredible win for New Zealand against the South Africans in the 2015 World Cup semifinal. He still had 12 to play with but Elliot's heroics brought the curtains down on a dream that had been nurtured by a generation of greats led by AB de Villiers, and Steyn suddenly found himself to be the villain of the piece.
"Steyn was a little restricted as a limited-overs bowler because he didn't have the slower balls, the variations, that are probably needed to be super successful. But it would be wrong to brand him as a failure in white-ball cricket," Harbhajan said.
The Indians remember their 2011 World Cup match against South Africa very well, when Steyn turned it around for the Proteas and handed Dhoni & Co. their only defeat of the tournament. "We were well on course to get 350 after Sachin Tendulkar got a century. But Steyn (5/50) came back with his reverse swing in the slog overs and kept us down to less than 300 (296)…We really got a taste of his quality in limited overs in that game," Bhajji added.
But beyond the victories and defeats, it was the sight of Steyn steaming in with a red ball that will always stay with us. For bowlers with more than 200 Test wickets, he has the second-best strike rate (42.3) behind Kagiso Rabada (41.2) while for those with 300 or more, he has the best above Waqar Younis (43.4).
But beyond the records, Steyn's greatness was probably summed up aptly by James Anderson's tweet --- "The Best".
