"Jimmy is hooping the ball all over the place in this series and he’s getting Sachin Tendulkar out for sweets these days," Steyn said.
South African fast bowler Dale Steyn maybe sitting atop the Test rankings for the past 18 months as the world’s best bowler bar none, but it is a position that can now be challenged by England’s James Anderson.
According to the Daily Express, Anderson’s skilful display of pace bowling against Sri Lanka and India have seen him close the gap on Steyn at the top of the ICC official Test rankings to the point where he is now a clear second in the table, ahead of Morne Morkel and Graeme Swann.
But Steyn has been so impressed with Anderson in this series against India that he conceded that the ICC official rankings might not be revealing the full story.
“There are plenty of ways you measure the best bowler but on all of them he is up there,” the paper quoted Steyn, as saying.
“Jimmy is hooping the ball all over the place in this series and he’s getting Sachin Tendulkar out for sweets these days. That is the sign of a really good bowler, getting good batsmen out all the time. Does it make him the best? Maybe it does,” he adds.
“Just because I’ve got more points than him, that doesn’t mean I am a better bowler,” Steyn said.
Steyn finished the leading wicket-taker against India in the drawn three-Test series that concluded in Cape Town in January, his 21 victims coming at a hugely impressive 17.47 apiece. After two matches in this series, Anderson now has 12 Indian wickets at 23.58.
“Rankings don’t tell the full story. But I do know that everybody strives to be the No1 player in whatever they are doing. As a bowler or a fielder, you always want to be No1 right from when you are a kid in high school. You train hard with the intention of being the best,” Steyn said.
“There is a reason why all this hype is swirling around England at the moment and to do what they did to India, winning by 319 runs at Trent Bridge, was unbelievably good,” said Steyn.
“They deserve the reward of being called the No1 Test team in the world. But be warned, for us we just held that mantle for a short period. We didn’t want it for a short period; we wanted to get there and stay there for two or three years. That’s what England should be aiming at. To really dominate like Australia did a few years back. They are the team that England should be weighing themselves against. It is fantastic getting there, but staying there is the difficult bit,” he added.
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