'Great player, great man, amazing memories' - Cricketers congratulate Dale Steyn on a wonderful career

"Bittersweet but grateful," Steyn wrote in his emotional note while announcing retirement.

By Aditya Gajanan Kukalyekar verified

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Dale Steyn
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Dale Steyn. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Dale Steyn pulled the curtains down on his illustrious cricket career on August 31, almost 17 years after making his international debut in December 2004. The man hadn’t played for South Africa since February 2020. Injury issues troubled the legendary pacer for the most parts of the last phase of his career. He even had to miss the World Cup 2019 played in England due to a shoulder injury.

Steyn had called it quits from the Test format back in August 2019 but was willing to continue especially in the shortest format. He was possibly targeting to play in the T20 World Cup scheduled in 2020 in Australia. But COVID-19 outbreak disturbed the plans and Steyn didn’t play any of the cricket in the post lockdown period.

Eventually, he decided to call it quits from all forms of the game on Tuesday penning down an emotional note on his Twitter handle. He referred to the popular lyrics from his favourite band, the Counting Crows while thanking everyone involved during his illustrious career.

Here’s his tweet:

Cricketers line up to congratulate Dale Steyn

Dale Steyn picked up a whopping 699 wickets in international cricket after featuring in 265 matches across formats. Undoubtedly, he was the best South Africa had in the Test format but the man was brilliant in the limited-overs too. His retirement comes as a surprise as the 38-year-old had earlier this year specifically stated that he was only pulling out of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and not retiring from the game.

He played in the Pakistan Super League (PSL) too then for the Quetta Gladiators and the game against Multan Sultans turned out to be the last of his career. Meanwhile, soon after his retirement announcement, the current and former cricketers lined up on Twitter to congratulate Dale Steyn on a successful career.

His former teammate and a dear friend AB de Villiers was one of the first to wish him. “Great player, great man, amazing memories! U picker a good song to sign off my bud. Legend forever!” he tweeted. The likes of Virender Sehwag, Pat Cummins and Suresh Raina among many others also wished Steyn for a brilliant career.

Here are some of the tweets:

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