Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Full name | David Stanley Steele | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | Bradeley, Stoke-on-Trent, England | 29 September 1941|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Nickname | Crime | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Batting | Right-handed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bowling | Slow left-arm orthodox | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
International information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
National side | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Test debut(cap 462) | 31 July 1975 v Australia | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Last Test | 17 August 1976 v West Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Only ODI(cap 36) | 26 August 1976 v West Indies | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Domestic team information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Years | Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1963–1978 | Northamptonshire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1979–1981 | Derbyshire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1982–1984 | Northamptonshire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Career statistics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Source:ESPNcricinfo,19 July 2013 |
David Stanley Steele (born 29 September 1941) [1] is an English former international cricketer. Tony Greig picked him for England in 1975 when he was close to retirement from county cricket for Northamptonshire.
Steele,who was born in Bradeley,Stoke-on-Trent,was a middle-order batsman. In his eight Test matches,he played against fast bowlers including Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson for Australia;and Andy Roberts,Michael Holding,Wayne Daniel and Vanburn Holder for the West Indies. His arrival followed a period of great difficulty for the national team mired in a difficult 1975 Ashes series. It led to the phrase,coined by Clive Taylor of The Sun ,that he was like a "bank clerk who went to war". [2] [3]
He was appointed as county captain of Derbyshire in 1979 but resigned after six weeks. He played for the club from 1979 to 1981.
Making his debut against Australia at Lord's in 1975,Steele got lost in the pavilion as he went out to bat. He went down one too many flights of stairs and found himself in the basement toilets. [1] Once he did arrive at the crease,fast bowler Jeff Thomson gave him a typically Australian welcome. Eyeing Steele's prematurely greying hair at 33,Thomson asked:"Bloody hell,who've we got here,Groucho Marx?" [4]
That summer,however,Steele scored 50,45,73,92,39 and 66 against the Australians in his trademark staunch,courageous and steady manner. When presenting Steele his cap in the dressing room before his debut,captain Tony Greig felt tears fall on his hand and considered that "Here was a man who would fight for me to the death". [5] His ability to stand up to hostile fast bowling,which other batsmen had struggled to cope with,and attack with the hook shot,raised morale among his teammates and spectators alike.
In the following year,he commenced against the even more fearsome fast bowling attack of the West Indies by scoring a century at Trent Bridge. Oddly,he was overlooked for that winter's tour to India based on the theory that he could not play spin bowlers. He duly returned to county cricket and finished his career back at Northampton in 1984 having scored over 22,000 runs,of which 673 came in Tests. [1]
Steele was voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 1975,and was named as one of the Wisden Cricketers of the Year in 1976.
John Augustine Snow is a retired English international cricketer who played for Sussex from 1961 to 1977 and represented England in 49 Test matches. He was born in Peopleton,Worcestershire.
Dennis Keith Lillee,is a retired Australian cricketer rated as the "outstanding fast bowler of his generation". Lillee formed a new ball partnership with Jeff Thomson which is recognised as one of the greatest bowling pairs of all time.
Michael Anthony Holding is a Jamaican former cricketer and commentator who played for the West Indies cricket team. Widely regarded as one of the greatest pace bowlers in cricket history,he was nicknamed "Whispering Death" due to his silent,light-footed run up to the bowling crease. Holding was a key member of the West Indies team that won the 1979 Cricket World Cup,as well as finishing as runners-up at the 1983 Cricket World Cup. He had the most wickets for his team at the 1979 tournament. His bowling action was renowned for being smooth and extremely fast,and he used his height to generate large amounts of bounce and zip off the pitch. He was part of the fearsome West Indian pace bowling battery,together with Andy Roberts,Joel Garner,Colin Croft,Wayne Daniel,Malcolm Marshall and Sylvester Clarke,that devastated opposing batting line-ups throughout the world in the late seventies and early eighties. Early in his Test career,in 1976,Holding broke the record for best bowling figures in a Test match by a West Indies bowler,14 wickets for 149 runs (14/149). The record still stands. During his first-class cricket career,Holding played for Jamaica,Canterbury,Derbyshire,Lancashire,and Tasmania. In September 2021,Holding announced his retirement from being a commentator.
Anthony William Greig was a South African-born cricketer and commentator. Greig qualified to play for the England cricket team by virtue of his Scottish father. He was a tall all-rounder who bowled both medium pace and off spin. Greig was captain of England from 1975 to 1977,and captained Sussex. His younger brother,Ian,also played Test cricket,while several other members of his extended family played at first-class level.
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Jeffrey Robert Thomson is a former Australian cricketer. Known as "Thommo",he is one of the fastest bowlers in the history of cricket;he bowled a delivery with a speed of 160.6 km/h against the West Indies in Perth in 1975,which was the fastest recorded delivery at the time,and the fourth-fastest recorded delivery of all time. He was a part of the Australian squad which finished as runners-up at the 1975 Cricket World Cup.
Derek William Randall is an English former cricketer,who played first-class cricket for Nottinghamshire,and Tests and ODIs for England in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He was a part of the English squad that finished as runners-up at the 1979 Cricket World Cup.
Kenneth Higgs was an English fast-medium bowler,who was most successful as the opening partner to Brian Statham with Lancashire in the 1960s. He later played with success for Leicestershire.
Chris Old is a former English cricketer,who played 46 Tests and 32 ODIs from 1972 to 1981. A right-arm fast-medium bowler and lower order left-handed batsman,Old was a key feature of the Yorkshire side between 1969 and 1983,before finishing his career at Warwickshire in 1985. As a Test bowler for England he took 143 wickets,and scored useful runs in the famous 1981 Ashes series' Headingley victory. He was a part of the English squad which finished as runners-up at the 1979 Cricket World Cup.
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