'I am 100% a fan' - Dale Steyn praises debutant Jhye Richardson

Jhye Richardson was Australia’s main bowler in the ODI series against India. The young fast bowler won the man of the match award in the first ODI of the series. The 22-year-old pacer’s impressive performances in the One Day Internationals earned him his maiden Test call up. Yesterday, he made his Test debut against Sri Lanka which impressed even the great Dale Steyn.

Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first in the day-night Test at the iconic Gabba in Brisbane. The pink ball helps the seamers at the start and the debutant made the full use of it. Richardson terrorized the Sri Lankan batsmen with his seam and swing as they seemed helpless in front of him. He took three wickets giving away just 26 runs as Sri Lanka folded up for just 144 in the first innings.

Jhye Richardson has a similar body structure as South Africa legend Dale Steyn. The legendary South African pacer proved to every youngster that you don’t need to be perfectly built to be a successful fast bowler. Now Richardson’s idol, Dale Steyn seems to be impressed by the Australian pacer. Dale Steyn wrote on Twitter “I’m 100% a fan! #boycanbowl.”

Here’s Steyn’s tweet

Jhye Richardson is a huge fan of Dale Steyn

“My big one (I grew up idolizing and modeling off) was Dale Steyn. Similar sort of build, the untraditional fast bowler, quite skinny and not as tall as everyone else, He proved that he could be a class bowler with that sort of build and bowl at an extreme pace. Breaking the stereotype of fast bowlers is what I’ve been trying to do.” Jhye Richardson said as quoted by cricket.com.au

It is not new for fast bowlers to take inspiration from the greats of the game. Even South African fast bowler Steyn had admitted that he is a huge fan of the fast bowling and he is never shy of taking inspiration from other great fast bowlers. He had mentioned names of Mitchell Johnson. Shoaib Akhtar, and Brett Lee as fast bowlers from whom he took inspiration

“I’m a fan of fast bowling, and I go through phases myself where I draw inspiration from other fast bowlers,” the great man had said, Mitchell Johnson, when he was on fire during that Ashes (in 2013-14), was just inspirational, I loved watching him. Brett Lee at the 2003 World Cup, for me, are highlights; Shoaib (Akhtar from Pakistan) in ’99, Allan Donald throughout his whole career, I can shout it out to you.” Dale Steyn had admitted

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