Dale Steyn, former South African pacer, recalled how South Africa saved West Indies legend Brian Lara’s record of highest individual Test score of 400* in a Test match against Sri Lanka in 2006.
Steyn and Lara are now on the same page as the bowling and head coach respectively of the Sunrisers Hyderabad franchise in the ongoing IPL 2023.
Recently, the cricket fraternity celebrated Lara's 19th anniversary of the day he slammed the highest Test score of 400 not out against England in 2004, in Antigua. However, Dale Steyn revealed how South Africa saved Lara’s record when Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara were rampaging in a Test against them in Sri Lanka.
Speaking on the franchise's YouTube channel, Steyn revealed that Lara, who is also SRH head coach, was nostalgic about his knock in the team bus. To this, the Proteas legend simply replied, "I literally just looked at him and said, 'You're welcome. You still have your record due to South Africa.”
Steyn then recalled how when South Africa played Sri Lanka in a Test in 2006 at Colombo SSC ground, Jayawardena and Sangakkara added a world record 624-run stand for the third wicket, keeping the Proteas on the field for over two days.
"This is where the story starts to kick in. Mahela (Jayawardene) and (Kumar) Sangakkara are batting together, Sangakkara is on strike. He cuts one straight to Jacques Rudolph at point, he drops the catch and it lands on the floor. The very next ball I run in, I’m an angered young man…Sanga drags the ball onto the stumps. Umpire puts his hand out and its a no ball", Steyn said.
"We never sniffed a wicket in that entire time. At Tea on day three, we'd been fielding for two and a half days in the sun. Ashwell (Prince, who was captain on the tour) and the South Africans all get together and our team talk was not about how we're gonna draw or win this game. Mahela was on 370 somewhere and we just said, 'We need to do anything possible to make sure he didn't break Brian Lara’s record.
We come out of the tea. Andre Nel is the bowler. And I’ve been fielding at mid off for most of this game. I’d seen everything happen in this game at mid off. I think he had run every milestone to me. I think he just blocked the ball and ran to me at this point. Nel ran in, he dragged one short, it was halfway down the pitch. I basically looked at the square leg because the bulk of the time that was where the ball was going. And for some crazy weird reason this ball didn’t get higher than ankle height and it castled Mahela’s stumps and we got him out for 374", Steyn said.
Jayawardena fell for 374 and Sangakkara made 287 as Sri Lanka posted 756/5d and went onto win the Test by an innings and 153 runs. Dale Steyn took 3/129 in 26 overs for South Africa.
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