Dale Steyn joins the 400 test wickets club as the joint fastest

Dale Steyn joins the 400 test wickets club as the joint fastest: Dale Steyn became the second South African in the history of the game to take 400 Test wickets as soon as he got rid of Bangladesh opener Tamim Iqbal on the opening day of the second Test on Thursday at Mirpur, Dhaka.

Playing his 80th Test match, Steyn became only the 13^th player to make an entry into the exclusive club of players who have taken 400 or more Test wickets. Shaun Pollock is the only other South African to pass the 400 wickets-mark, taking 421 wickets before retiring in 2008. Tamim’s wicket made Steyn the joint fastest seamer to 400 Test wickets, equalling Richard Hadlee’s 80 appearances. He is the second fastest to the landmark overall. Only Muttiah Muralitharan has been quicker to achieve the landmark, as the Sri Lankan spin wizard required just his 72 matches for the feat.

The number one bowler in Test cricket is one of only three currently active cricketers to achieve the feat, joining India spinner Harbhajan Singh and England paceman James Anderson. He should have had his first in the third over of the day when Tamim flayed at a delivery but Dean Elgar at second slip could not hold on as the ball dipped on to him. Steyn is set to break the record of Wasim Akram (414 wickets) and Kapil Dev (434 wickets) in days to come.

“Fantastic. Just fantastic!” said Haroon Lorgat, the Cricket South Africa Chief Executive. “The statistics as always speak for themselves and one cannot compliment Dale enough. He is the joint second fastest to reach this mark in terms of matches played, but he is by far the quickest in terms of balls bowled as his strike rate of 41.6 is far superior to anybody else. No other bowler in that category has a strike rate below 50.

“But there is far more to Dale’s success than pure statistics. His ability to bowl conventional swing at high pace and then switch to lethal reverse swing – he is one of the finest exponents of this latter art – combined with his superb control make him the world leader he has become for most of the past decade.

“The other quality of Dale we will always remember is the way he celebrates every wicket he takes and the intensity with which he does it. Those veins tell us exactly what it means to him to take a wicket for his country. He is truly a proud South African” said the CSA chief.

Here is the list of Top 10 bowlers fastest to 400 Test wickets: