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Dale Steyn

South African cricketer

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 25, 2026
Entity authorityQ3531671
Source-derived summary

Dale Willem Steyn (; born 27 June 1983) is a South African former professional cricketer who played for the South African cricket team. He is widely regarded as the greatest fast bowler of the modern era and one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time. Steyn's ability to produce late swing at high pace - a rare and lethal combination amongst fast bowlers - made him stand apart from many of his contemporaries. Many cricketing legends have regarded his length deliveries unplayable when the ball swung. During the 2007–08 season, Steyn achieved a tally of 78 wickets at an average of 16.24, and was subsequently rewarded with the ICC 2008 Test Cricketer of the Year Award. He was named one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 2013, and the Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World for the year 2013 in 2014's Wisden Cricketers' Almanack. In December 2015 he injured his shoulder in the Durban Test against England; after this injury his career was a short lived one as it was followed by multiple injuries; these injuries were the reason why many cricketing greats didn't even consider post 2015 Steyn as "The Dale Steyn" which the batsmen feared to face. He was featured in Wisden Cricketers of the Decade at the end of 2019. He also was included in the ICC Test Team of the Decade at the end of 2020.

Steyn dominated the number one spot in the ICC Test rankings at the peak of his career, for a record 263 weeks between 2008 and 2014.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Dale Steyn” as south African cricketer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Dale, Steyn and South.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1983, 2007, 2008, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1983-06-27. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Dale, Steyn and South providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Dale Steyn”, the useful work is to connect “south African cricketer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3531671. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1983, 2007, 2008 and 2013.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Dale Steyn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.