What is Dale Steyn doing during #SocialDistancing
Dale Steyn, like for most active sportspersons, had to endure an uncertain few days with the pandemic of COVID-19 (Novel coronavirus) creating panic and cancellation of most sporting activities around the world. In an interview to ESPN Cricinfo, Dale Steyn spoke about how he is coping with lack of cricket and the importance of sport in times of crisis.
Steyn mentioned that he does not do much of cricket training in his off-time. Rather, it is fitness which at his age that he needs to focus on. Steyn said “Well, you know, luckily for me, I tend to not do a lot of cricket practice. I'm at a point where I feel like if I wanted a bowl a bouncer or a length ball or a yorker, I can do it. Muscle memory is enough for me to be able to do that. So I just rock up on the day of a game and do my warm-ups and go through my basic routine and then just try and kick my mind into play.
“The one thing that I need to continuously do is, I got to look after my body. I've got to do the rehab and a little bit of strength work, and I've got to keep my fitness up. So here at the house, we've got a couple bit of weights lying around, and we've got some bands that I use for my shoulder workouts and stuff like that, and I'm surfing a lot and we can go for a run. So fitness is not an issue.”
About the need to keep himself fit for the IPL, Steyn further added “I'm just kind of waiting for the next thing to find out what it is and how long it is before they require us to be there. If I've got to go to the IPL in a week from now, then tomorrow I'll just jump into it. I will head down to the indoor nets and I'll get going, but if I don't know what's happening right now, I'm just trying to keep myself fit and keep myself fresh and healthy really.”
Steyn lamented the lack of sporting activity, and elucidated on the role of sports in times like these. "It is actually such a pity that everything is being blocked off, because in a country like South Africa, where we have all of our problems from the past - culture, religion, ethnic backgrounds - the one thing that brings everybody together is sport. It doesn't matter what religion you are or what colour your skin is, you can go to a game on a Saturday and you can all be supporting the same cricket team or rugby team and you all get along really well. But now at the moment, you don't have that.”
NEXT
