Cricket South Africa Clarify On Dale Steyn’s Exclusion From Squad For India T20Is

Hours after Dale Steyn took a sly dig at the selectors, Cricket South Africa (CSA) have released a statement to give a clarification on the matter. Dale Steyn was a surprising omission from South Africa’s T20I squad for their upcoming tour of India. The veteran pacer recently retired from Tests to prolong his cricket career. However, the start has not been very promising as Proteas dropped him for the first series after the World Cup.

Unsurprisingly, Steyn was hurt with the omission and took his frustration out on Twitter albeit in a subtle manner. However, South Africa have insisted that they did not pick the pacer because of medical issues. The statement is clearly contradictory with Steyn’s tweet where he had said that he had made himself available for the T20I series.

“He is not yet medically ready and our information makes that very clear,” Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) acting director of cricket Corrie van Zyl.

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Steyn has struggled with his fitness in recent times. He has not played a competitive game since the game for Royal Challengers Bangalore in April. A shoulder injury had ruled him out of the IPL. He was a part of South Africa’s World Cup squad but could not play a single game before being ruled out of the tournament.

Van Zyl also informed that both Vernon Philander (hamstring) and Theunis de Bruyn (back) were on course to recover fully before the start of the three-Test series against India in October.

“Both are on track, but they will have to play one match before the tour to prove that they are fully fit,” Van Zyl said.

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So far, Dale Steyn has represented South Africa in 44 T20Is, picking up 61 wickets at an average of 17.50. For a fast bowler, he also has a decent economy of 6.79 in the shortest format of the game. Steyn has also played 201 T20s and has scalped 231 wickets.