Dale Steyn - Ordineroli Speaking

#OrdineroliSpeaking Dale Steyn is one of the greatest fast bowlers cricket has ever seen. The South African quick terrorised batsmen throughout his career - to do so, he had to create a persona, a monster. So who is the man behind the monster? In this episode, Dale opens up about the most challenging period of his career, and why it still haunts him.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Ordinarily speaking, you see the monster, but you don't see
the real meat.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Takes time. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of
ordinarily Speaking. Dale Stain is regarded as one of the
greatest fast bowlers of all time. He retired from the
game last year with four hundred and thirty nine Test wickets,

(00:41):
one hundred and ninety six ODI scalps, as well as
sixty forty twenty international wickets to his name. But the
one thing he desperately wanted, a maiden World Cup title
for South Africa, eluded him. The biggest moment of your
career what happens when you don't deliver? Dale chares that
side of the story with brutal honesty and admits it

(01:03):
gnawed at him for years, maybe even for life. The
man who declares he willfully terrified people out on the
ground is now finding his feet in retirement, navigating the
anxiety that change brings, and coming to terms with what
could have been. Knowing he'll never get the chance again.
I'm pleased to say the animal on the pitch is

(01:23):
replaced by an incredibly caring man off it. He's just
a country kid at heart and a delightful person to
be around. I hope you enjoy getting to know Dale
Stain in a chat that comes full circle as Dale
makes a poignant realization at the end. Well, thanks so

(01:50):
much for joining me, Dar, I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
You are most welcome. We've already had enough laughs before
we even started this, so let's see where we go.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
It's the best way to do things, isn't it having
a laugh first?

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Absolutely?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I want to start by saying, I've obviously watched you
for so many years, like so many cricket fans. Have
you got the bulging eyes, the crazy eyes on the field,
this intense character. Yeah, working with you, getting to know you,
it turns out that you are the most chilled, lovely,
generous guy. And the two just don't align at all.

(02:26):
What's it like for you being almost two completely different
people from professional to personal.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah? Look, I think when you go on to the field,
you have to kind of be somebody else, you know,
like to like see like I'm fast bowler, Like I
love bowling fast and everything like that. When I was
a kid, I love bowling fast, But then I learned
all these other things that come with fast bowling, like
body language and like the fear factor and all of
that thing, you know, all those things that kind of

(02:54):
come with it. So I created like this kind of
persona on the field, who I'm not exactly the same
off the field too. And then when I got on
and I just kind of slipt into that person you know,
into that persona, and I do my thing, and then
off the field, I am who I am?

Speaker 2 (03:11):
So who is this persona that you created?

Speaker 1 (03:14):
I just wanted to create somebody that was scary, you know,
like that's that's what I thought. That's what I was
told about fast bowling, you know. And I watched those
West Indians ball back in the day and watched Shai Bowl.
I was absolutely petrified as a viewer watching this, and
I was like this, this scares me, you know, without
ever meeting these guys. And then when I started to play,
I started to realize, maybe this is These are the

(03:34):
kind of things, these attributes that I needed to include
into my game. I played against Shane Warne and I
loved listening to him. I played against him luckily where
he sledged guys, not sledged them badly, but like he
was very clever with these words. So I picked up
things like that, especially when he targets people's techniques. He
makes you feel like you are hitting the ball where
he wants you to hit the ball, rather than allowing

(03:55):
you to feel like I've just played the shot that
I wanted to play. He's like, no, no, no, no,
you played the shot that I wanted you to play.
So it really makes you think. You know, and then
watching other guys like the Quicks, like Shaib and Brettley
and all of that, I just wanted to take all
of that, package it into something and of bash it
all up and then make it who I wanted it
to be, and then guard into the field and scare

(04:18):
people and take wickets.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
When you saw yourself, did you recognize yourself in those
crazy eyes?

Speaker 1 (04:25):
They it's the yeah, look it's different. Like when I
watch myself play. Sometimes I sit down and I watch
and I watch the early early years and I'm like,
who is that person? What's going through that kid's mind?
You become like this thing through the people that you
are around. You know. I was lucky enough that I
spend time with Darryl cullenan who kind of he would
put the ball into my hand. He'd be like, you

(04:45):
do what I tell you to do. You know, otherwise
I'll find somebody else to do it, you know, and
you get hard and you you start to do that
and then it becomes part of your game. But it's
actually what he wanted, you know. He wanted me to
bounce people and hit people and everything. But then I
found success in that. I've got wickets like it, so
I just I stole it and I'm like, I'm gonna
put that into my game. That's gonna become part of
my game. But it was his game plan, you know,

(05:06):
and loads of different examples. But yeah, when I watch it,
I'm like, I don't recognize that human because it's not
who I actually am. But it's good to slip into
that and be that because it can be very successful
on the field, you know, in sport.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Is it hard as well? Though completely pretending to be
someone else it can be.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
As a matter of fact, I think it's like it's
quite It's a nice release for me because when I
go into the field, everything that I have, like normal
life issues, like anybody else like kind of just they
stay off the field, and I'm able to go into
this field and just like express not who I am,
but express how I want to go about doing something
without having the worry of someone sitting there going, oh,

(05:48):
but he's a nice guy. I actually want people to
walk into the field thinking, oh, he's a nice guy,
and then walk into the situation where they feel absolute
terror and fear, because that's what it is. You know,
you should be able to if you can't get wickets
through guys with skill, sometimes fear is the biggest way
of getting poles, especially when it comes to fast bowling.
There's nothing more scary than facing a fast piling when

(06:09):
you feel like your life is on the line. It is,
and that's an incredible power to have as a fast bowler.
And I experienced that at a young age where I
was probably fourteen, and I was a timid little guy
at fourteen, and I was playing club cricket against men,
and when I was flooring these guys, I was hitting
these guys, you know, and seeing grown men lying on
the floor almost in tears. There was a power that

(06:30):
I'd now experienced for the first time that I never
felt in my life before. And that's what you get
when you get onto that field.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
I'm looking across from you, when I'm seeing the crazy
eyes coming out.

Speaker 1 (06:38):
Of me right now, starting to slip into it. I'm
going to turn green at some point, like the Hulk
just burst through things.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
I love that. So you genuinely enjoyed terrifying people.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, absolutely loved it. Like it just you know, I
didn't get a kick out of it, like I'd stand
there and laugh at somebody, you know, But like I,
you could smell it, not smell it like physically smell it,
but you can get a sense of it, like in
a whiff of it, like would they say, like a
wolf or a line or can pick up and track
blood from a mile away, like I could feel when

(07:12):
I would look at two batters and I'd be like, no,
I can see that you are absolutely petrified, and the
other guy he's okay. So I'm going to focus everything
on you. You are going to be the weakest prey
and going to be simple and easy for me to get.
And that's just how I did it.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
I think I've actually worked it out that the reason
why you're so nice is because you got all your
anger around.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Get away on the field. Yeah, dirt all on the field,
and don't tweak me before I go out onto the field,
because just absolutely come out your barrage.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I love that. Is there any moments where you had
to pretend where you were feeling less secure within yourself
or feeling that sense of fear of failure. I guess
that you had to convince yourself to be that guy.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
I think a lot of the time I had. There
was times when I was prepping for a game when
I just felt like things are not going well, you know,
like I don't feel physically good. I'm saw my hamstringers,
saw I'm struggling with a quad or my body saw
it's been a rough test match. And then then, as
the old saying goes, you fake it. You know, you

(08:21):
fake it, so you make it. And I would run
out onto that field and fake the energy and just
put a put a show on to again, like show
the opposition that I'm, yeah, I'm you know, I'm I'm
going to be in your face today, and then walk
back into the dressing room absolutely fall down there and
lie there and just go all right, I need a
red bull and a coke and you know, and let's go,

(08:42):
you know, and then just go out there and try
and do it again. So that was that was tough,
but then it was always good. My coaches always saw
the effort that I put in and the mental side
of things, because it is difficult to try and slip
into that thing. That also when you go back into
the dressing room, and it was always strange because I
found when you walk in the dressing room, people don't
want you to scream and shout and lose your shit,

(09:04):
you know. And I wasn't somebody that did a lot
of that, but if I did, that's sports, you know.
People do tend to lose their cool sometimes sometimes something
doesn't go your way, and then someone would come to
me in the dressing room and be like, oh, you
must calm down, and I'm like, you know, what do
you mind if I curse? It's like, you know, of course,
you know, fuck you, you know you you want me to
be this animal on the field. But then when I
come off the field and I'm in my safe space
in the dressing room, you come and tell me that

(09:25):
I need to put a lit on it. No, it's not,
that's not gonna happen. Give me my five minutes. And
then you get the monster out on the field and
you might get a little bit of him in the
dressing room, you know, but not always, you know, it's
just but it was it's hard work to try and
like manage that. But as soon as I got off
the field most of the time have a shower, and
you get off into public and everything, you just slip
into who you are. You know, just leave that at

(09:46):
the ground, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
Because that always fascinates me with athletes, particularly really physical
sports or like you're saying, a sport where you, you know,
you're essentially trying to terrify somebody, How you get in
and out of that mindset because you are still human
at the end of the day. It's not, I imagine,
not just a switch you can flick.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, So I started to like work this out that
the moment I put on my uniform is when I
slipped into the monster I wanted to be, you know,
all this villain or whatever it was. I grew up
watching like anybody like watching cartoons, and I didn't watch
a lot of it, but I love Batman. Batman was
a big one for me. She still quite enjoy watching.
You know, they're dark and they you know, they're very

(10:26):
They're good like Christian Bale are great. But I found
like Batman is probably the most relatable of all your
superheroes because he's actually just human, you know, who puts
this cape on and hides his face and he goes
out there. He's got no superhuman powers, Like if you
shoot him, you can die. You know. Where's all the
other super humans are like that, you shoot them, they
recover and all that kind of crap, you know. But

(10:47):
like Batman for me was like very relatable, and I
was like cool, I want to do that when it
comes to cricket. So as soon as I put my
uniform on, whether it be playing for Franchise Crickets, Melbourne
Stars or RCB or Sunrises whoever it was or South Africa,
I become this superhuman, you know, and nothing's gonna fucking
stop me. Nothing will stop me, not even a broken shoulder.

(11:08):
I am gonna go. And then when I come off,
then I can slip back into who who I want,
who I am. You know, Batman still kind of fakes
it like he's this billionaire, but I not that. Then
I can be who who I want people to believe,
who I am, who I feel I am. You know.
I enjoy surfing and nature and outdoors and dogs and

(11:29):
laughing and crying and all that kind of crap. But
then on the field, I want to be that, you know, because.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
You are a big softer. You cry Reality TV terrible.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Don't watch me sit here and I've been. I've told you,
I've been. Get into this dark hole, black hole of
YouTube with American idols and watching like nine year olds
come there with I don't know you know, and they sing.
I just I start crying alone in my room in
a bubble, Terrible. Who have I.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Become the monster crying in a bubble at a little
girl who won a contest? I love it.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
It's good, it's inspirational. Everyone should have a tier every
now and then.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Absolutely real men cry. Tell me about before we get
stuck in because you mentioned the shoulder just there, and
I want to talk about the injuries that you've overcome.
But I just want to go backwards a little bit
because you grew up in a real little town. Tell
me about it.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
So it's like this tiny little town that's connected to
the Kruger National Park, Like there's nothing that happens there.
It's like a tourist town, but there's a big mine.
My whole family actually comes from Zimbabwe, so I think
they went down for a funeral my grandfather went down
for a funeral and there was like job application going
around or they needed somebody to do a specific job.

(12:51):
And his name was popped up because he was there,
and he said, I'll come, but I'm bringing all my
sons and son in laws. So my dad joined the party.
And yeah, I was the only one that was born
in South Africa in Pallabora. My whole family was born
in Zimbabwe, and I feel like I'm an outcast just
from that, you know, alone but tiny little town, no

(13:13):
fences around the place. So we had loads of animals
cruising through all the time. Like when I went to school,
ride our bicycles or cycle or walk through the bush
and there, I mean we would see tons of animals, elephants, lines,
you name it, like daily basis, you know.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Literally just walking this school, you'd come across these sort.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Of animals, Yeah, cruising through going on the way to school.
And then sometimes the police would be there and they
would tell us you're not allowed to walk this way
today because it's a little dirt track that goes through
to the school. And they're like, you're not allowed to
go this way because there's two male lines. And we're
like shit, Now we've got to go the long way around,
you know, the bicycles. It was not that far, but
still like you can't go the shortcut, you know, you.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Weren't willing to take on the lines.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
I didn't mind. I mean like I don't. I genuinely
wish people can go, like google the place, you know,
and just google images of it. My dad is a
green keep on the golf course there, and I mean
as a kid, I learned how to drive on that
golf course. And we saw everything we've seen, lion kills,
leopard kills, cheetah kills, wild dog kills. We saw twenty
one wild dog eat impola like race through number seventeen.

(14:14):
It's the water, it's a bit. It's a hole that's
got a big water crossover. They chased an impola through
and they ripped that impoller to nothing. In about three minutes.
Twenty one wild Dog's gone, im Pola disappeared. We watched
that and yeah, I ate it on the green you know,
like you can google this. It's real. It's right there.
And for a long time my dad used to make

(14:36):
videos and then send them into There was a show
in South Africa. It was called Felt focus. It's Afrikaans
that means bush focus, or it was called fifty to
fifty bush focus, felt focus. And you could send your
home videos in of what you've seen, and my dad
was a regular. He used to send videos in of
like pythons that crossed the whole road. We used to
get out and try and move them, and lions and

(14:58):
all of this kind of stuff on the golf course
because people were just amazed that this was happening on
the golf course and this was on my doorstep.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
You didn't have to go far from motivation to be
the monster.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
No no, And I think a lot of that is
like where I grew up is why is who I
am on the field? You know, I watched animals in
the way that they behaved, and like I knew that
they target the weakest link. It's quite simple. You know,
if you're gonna take if a line's going to take
down a buffalo, he's not going to take it down
the biggest bull. He isn't to take down the cough
or the one that's struggling or something like that. And
in cricket, I just found like that was what I

(15:27):
wanted to do. I wanted to get the big wickets,
you know. So if David Warner is there, he's batting
on one hundred and eighty or ninety or whatever it is,
I want to get him out. But if the other
bloke that's batting with him is more likely to get out,
I'm going to break it open. I'm going to get
that guy out. And that's what happens in nature. I
just kind of took it from there and just went
to the creep field. I used everything that I experienced
in life and took it onto the field.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Did you ever have any close calls with any of.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
Those, well, life, Yeah, we went fishing, me my best mate.
We walked into a female line once. I don't know
who got a bigger fright, whether she got the bigger
fright than what we did. We'd parked at this point.
We used to fish at this dam and then became privatized,
so we would still sneak on and park our cord
the bush and then walk and yeah, we came within

(16:10):
about twenty meters of her and so about a pitch length,
and yeah, she got a bigger fright than what we did.
I reckon, I could see her eyes and then we
just back pedaled. And she cruised off and that was that.
But yeah, I've been chased by hippo many times.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Yeah, it must be terrifying. They there deadliest animal in
the world.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Don't Yeah, yeah, yeah they are. But you time it,
you know, you just you know, like when they like
you can see they're coming, coming, coming, coming, coming, and
then when they get like within five meters or ten
meters of the water, I kind of work it out,
like can they get out quicker than I can get away?
And when they do get out, you fucking go, you know,
you get up that tree as quickly as you can.

(16:52):
That happened many, many times. Yeah, a couple of times
that we were fishing when we would be young and
want to cross over because we don't walk around the wole.
So we walked through but way deep and then get
to the other side and see there's a big croc,
like a three meter crock, and you just think, why
do we do that? You know, Like, yeah, Discovery Channel
ruined everything for me because now I sit back and

(17:13):
I think, how did I not die?

Speaker 2 (17:18):
I'm also very very happy that I've managed to get
a park the car from your it's a freaking accent.
Now that you're retired, do you fully appreciate how incredible
it is that a guy from that town ended up
being the number one fast bowler in the world for

(17:39):
a significant amount of time.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, I still don't know how that happened. I mean,
I've told you my story, which is a very funny one,
and we'll keep that one private, but it's as good.
But you know, there was something in the water in
my street that I grew up in because like one
of my best mates went on to become a really
good photographer and he's on Instagram. Who who got you
to follow? Now? He's been on Jimmy Fallon and we've
spoken about this and I'm just giving him heads up.

(18:03):
Marlon da Toy. And then there was like two other
people that were that were in my street. They were
the same age as me. They went onto one his
name is Logan Crobola. He went on to be the
lead singer of a band in South Africa called Cutting
Jade and they were massive in South Africa. And then
Warren his brother. Logan's brother, Warren was an Olympic swimmer
for South Africa and I think he won bronze at

(18:24):
one of the Olympics and we all lived in the
same street growing up out of this one town. So yeah,
we got good. We got the good water. You know,
everybody else got the shitty water.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Like I don't know, they brewedomed off there. So this
podcast is all about resilience, and obviously you've shown a
heap just coming from such a small town to end
up where you are. But we were talking about the
pressures of being an elite athlete and also you know
the Indian team for example, and a billion people watching

(18:55):
them in those big pressure moments, and you told me
the hardest moment of your cricketing career was the twenty
fifteen World Cup and the semifinal. For context for people,
can you give people an idea of the pressure that
exists on South African cricketers in World Cups and the
history that exists there.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, I think we've just come with us. We've been
such a good team. You know, we came from a
pretty difficult We had a bad start, you know in
the world. You know, we had a Party eight and
we we weren't great, you know, and we've tried to
rectify that stuff since and we've come onto the map

(19:36):
and we've done really well. We've created some great cricketers
and we've beaten the best teams in the world. But
then when it goes to World Cups, we haven't managed
to win one yet. And they're tough because they happened
once every four years and we haven't been around for
a very long time. I think since ninety two we
were kind of reintroduced, but we were a really good
cricket team back then. The disappointing thing is that we've
had so many fantastic cricketers come out of South Africa

(19:59):
and at some point in time we've all also played
in one team. So you would expect something, you know,
something from us, but it just hasn't happened. And I'm
hoping now coming into the future. Now, like with the
amount of World Cups they are, they happen kind of
like regularly now twenty twenty World Cups, the World Cup
happens every four years. With them happening so regularly, now

(20:21):
there might be a chance that South Africa might sneak one,
you know, in the in the next five to ten years,
we might be able to win one or two and
that would be fantastic because we've produced some great cricketers.
But it does come with a lot of pressure, especially
because our other favorite team in South Africa is the
Springbok Rugany team who've won a couple of World Cups already,

(20:42):
and we're good mates of them, and they're not scry
to tell us that either. So yeah, it's been rough,
and I think in twenty fifteen we felt like that
was the one. Maybe twenty and eleven we felt like
we stood a good chance and we really messed it
up against New Zealand. We were walking game essentially, and
we messed it up, knocked out of that one. And

(21:04):
then in twenty fifteen we felt like things were things
were happening, and yeah, Brandon McCollums team came out and
just blew us away with the bat, and unfortunately I
was the I was on the receiving end of the
runs being scored off my bowling, and that I'll just
have to live with for the rest of my love.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
You say that with a half smile on your face,
but you mean it, don't You have to live with
that feeling?

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I bowled that final ball,
you know, And it wouldn't have made it any different
if he, like if he nicked it for four. I
would have felt different, but he smashed me for six,
like out into the crowd, you know. And it was
crazy because it was Grant Elliott. I think he had
he got mad in the match, but he had nicked
and prodded and dropped and mishit everything up until that

(21:54):
one shot, you know. So it was like that was
even more like a rubbed it in even more for
me because at that point I just felt like this
guy couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat.
And then bang he hits me out of the ground,
you know. So and credit to him because he just
stuck in and he got the whole He got New
Zealand over the line. But yeah, that has to live

(22:15):
with me. You know. It's not like he nicked me
for four and I go, oh, you know, we lost
it because he edged it for four. I went for six.
That's the That's like the biggest insult for a bowler
that can happen. As you get hit for six and
then get knocked out of a WORL Cup. It's like
a double whammy.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
So for context for people listening, like you said, there
were so many chances to get him out, miss run out,
to ab you know, was so upset. Abd Villiers was
so upset after that, and there were chances it just
happened to be that you were the bowler in the
final over. They needed twelve off the final over. Can
you tell me the mindset of an elite athlete in

(22:48):
that moment, with the context of the pressure that you've
just spoken about of a country like South Africa.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
So I wasn't feeling any pressure. That's the crazy thing.
I was standing at third man that over before I
can't remember who boldy over may have been more and
more coal, and I was standing at third man, and
I was very relaxed, and Gary Kirsten was standing. There
was Gary Russell Dominger may have been there, and they
were looking at me. I could see the bench and
I actually turned to them. I said, boys, relax, I've

(23:15):
got this like I've got it. It's not an issue.
I've got it. That's how relaxed I felt. But Dan Vittoria,
I think first ball may have cut me for four
very short boundary and then ran one to a buy
or something. You know, there's some small little things. I
can't remember the whole over. I watched it last year
for the first time over, and I hadn't wanted to

(23:36):
watch it because I was just like, I just want
to get rid of this memory. It's a terrible memory.
It's bad enough getting knocked out. I don't want to
watch all six balls. I don't really care what happened.
You know, we lost. That's all that really, you know, matters.
But there were little moments in that game that were
leading up to the last over where we should have won,
where we could have won, and a lot of focus
then goes to the ultimate thing, which is the runs

(23:59):
being it and I have to live with that, like
I said, but leading up to that, I know in
my mind that there was a lot of those little
things that we should have done better. But at the
end of the day, I take the run for it.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
So when that six is hit, how do you feel?

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Oh? Shattered? You know, just absolutely like because you feel
like you've got it. You know. It's not like I
was not planning on losing that, you know, not even
as I let go of the ball. It wasn't like
I was running in thinking to myself, I'm going to
bowl this ball to prevent him from winning. I'm going
to bowl this ball to get us over the line.

(24:34):
That's the mindset. You know, there's two different ways of
thinking about it. And often if you're thinking the other way,
where you think I need a bowl of delivery to
stop him from hitting me for runs, that's when you
go for runs. Whereas if your mindset is I'm going
to bowl this ball to get him out or to
fucking nail this, that's when you get it right. And
that was my mindset. But yeah, he got it right.

(24:54):
I mean he was obviously thinking the same way I was,
and slightly more and bang.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
You know the moments after, how do you feel?

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Yeah, completely shouted and I went down and immediately like
I went into you get like this fight or flight
kind of like mode, you know, and I immediately just
thought about everybody else that was in the team, like
straight away, like I was like, don't think about yourself,
don't think about yourself. This is what I'm telling myself.
So I got up. I may have been lying down.

(25:25):
I think Grant actually picked me up, ye, image, Yeah,
it was amazing, and I don't remember I said well done,
But at the moment I didn't want to like give
up too much, but I want to show that I'm
happy for them because they played a fantastic game, you know,
Like I love the game and I actually don't mind losing,
like especially if somebody else has played incredibly well. I'm

(25:46):
a big fan of cricket, you know, I'm a big
fan of winning and losing. You learn a lot more
when you lose than when you do when you're winning,
and that's just part of life. You know. I've actually
lost a lot in my life than i've won, luckily
out a good career, and people can argue that, but like,
I don't mind losing, you know, so quickly you had
to like slip into that mode that this is not
about you, this is not about you. Walk into the
dressing room and there was tears all around. There was

(26:07):
a lot of young guys that were that were crying
and they were they were upsets, and I just felt like,
this is a moment for you. This is the bigger
moment for you right now. It's to go around and
tell the boys it's gonna be okay. So I'd like
went to everybody with a smile on my face, not joyous,
but with a smile on my face. It's gonna be okay.
It's gonna be okay. Don't worry, boys, you got another one.
We can have another one, you know, and like really

(26:28):
hold hold it together. And then I can remember walking
into my room at the hotel and as I walked in,
I just fucking screamed, you know, like threw my back
back on the floor, took my head in my hands,
and like just like I just fucking screamed NonStop. Like
it was. You almost want to get upset about it,
you know, because I feel sorry for that guy. You know,
he had to have a lot of he had a

(26:50):
lot on him. Anyway, We've come and gone yeah, and
I'm yeah, I'm still alive.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
You're getting upset over it, You've got tears in your eyes.
What is it that gets you upset in this moment?

Speaker 1 (27:08):
I just it's it's a lot to put onto people,
you know. And I think at that time, like there
was a lot of other people that could have like
held that responsibility, like, but I carried a lot, you know,
I felt like I carried a lot. I'm sure everybody
else did. I'm pretty certain Abe felt the same and
more needed and everything. But I think because it happened

(27:28):
to me, like I wanted to carry a lot more
than everybody else, and I wanted to show a lot
more that everything would be okay. But it was heartbreaking,
you know. It was.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
You put a lot of pressure on yourself and then
you feel it externally as well. How did you get
through that evening and then the coming days?

Speaker 1 (27:47):
So the next day was great, just kind of like
I can't remember how I fell asleep that night. It
was just a shit night, you know, you kick and
toss and turn and everything. But we were we were
kind of fucked because we couldn't get a flight out
of out of Auckland, so we had to wait. And
I think we spent two days in Auckland and it
was actually really nice because I think Aby's family was.

(28:09):
There was a couple of different families that have come
to watch. And the next day we all got together,
we went for lunch. You could see the boys were hurting,
Like the guys were hurting, but we try to kick
into normal life as quickly as possible, just for that time,
enjoy our company because we're all rushing off to the
IPL after that. And yeah, it was difficult because then
when you go when you were at least when you
got your mates and your teammates and stuff like that.

(28:31):
You can kind of bounce off each other. You go
outside and get some fresh air, and someone will come
out there and they'll they'll put them around you, or
you put your hom around them and you say you're okay. Yeah,
you know, you're okay. You're not alone. But then when
you go to the IPL, often you go to a
team and there's nobody else that's from your team is
in that space. Is really difficult. Now now you are
alone again for a long period and you have to

(28:53):
start to put out performances again, Like how you switch
over is so tough.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, so how you cope in the recovery of that moment?
How long did it stay with you for?

Speaker 1 (29:04):
I've faked it for a solid year, at least a
solid solid year of just trying to pretend that I
had shit together, but like I didn't, and even now,
like I'm upset because it's just hard. You know, it
would have been nice to win a work up. I'm not.

(29:25):
I'm never gonna be able to win one as a
player anymore. That opportunity's coming gone. Although I feel fine,
I'm standing there kicking, my arms are good, you know,
I'm like, get me back in there. Let's go for it.
But that opportunity is coming gone, so that's upsetting, you know.
It's like looking back in your life and going there
was a window there where, but they don't come often,
you know, missed it.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
It's a lot to carry, it is it is.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
But that's sport, you know. That's the that's the bargain
you make with yourself. You know, it's almost like making
a deal with the devil in a sense, like you know,
like you sell your soul to the game as well.
It's not just a skill thing. You really do, you know,
and you put a lot on the line, and not
just for yourself but everybody that's around you, like family
who don't get to see you, and your partners and
your kids and dogs. And I get home, my dogs

(30:11):
don't recognize me. They like hide away from me for
the first few days because they're like this guy he
comes and gives us love, and then he leaves one month,
and then we're supposed to love you like what you know,
And that's the kind of that's how you sell yourself
to the game a little bit. You you really you
go all in, you know, and there's a lot of
other things that kind of like have to bear the
brunt of that as well as yourself, you know.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
So in that moment, that's everything that you're thinking of,
everything I've given up, everything I've sacrificed, all the people
that have sacrificed, and I didn't deliver. In that moment,
Is that what's going through your head?

Speaker 1 (30:43):
And of all comes flooding in, doesn't it? You know?
And for everybody else it doesn't. They don't mind, you know,
They're like, it's okay, don't worry, but it is. You know.
I feel like I dragged you guys through this. You know,
I'll let you. I don't see you for two three years,
you know, like come to the wedding, come to the funeral,
No cons I'm going to I'm going to fucking this place.

(31:05):
You know, I've got to go and play. I'm prepping.
I'm getting ready for a World Cup. You miss so
much and then when you don't get what you are
going for, you feel like a dick, you know, like
how did I wasn't there more important things? Then? Why
do I have to live with this feeling now? You know,
of disappointment, you know, But that's that's that's sports, you know,
that's life actually.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
So when you say it took a year that you
faked it, how much did it impact you and how
did it impact you?

Speaker 1 (31:33):
I think it impacted me a lot on the on
what people perceived to It had like a knock on
effect into the way that other people looked at the
way that I went about my business. And I think
for a year, like I was then not included in
one or two teams, or I was picked up by teams,
but like you know, he's not our first choice anymore.
He's just had a bad woke cup didn't have a

(31:54):
bad walk up about one ball went out of the ground.
But anyway, that was the year that I felt, especially
in my mind, like that's how sort going, you know,
everything I was like shit there against me now, you know.
And that was also really tough.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
So whether it's real or not, that's real in your head.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
It's really in your head. Yeah, it's one hundred percent
really in your head. Most coaches would say, no, I'm
not even thinking that, and I'm like, I swear you're
thinking that. You start to see these demons and ghosts
that really don't exist.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
You know, did you talk about it or did you
hold onto it and keep it private how much you
were struggling with it.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
I think I hold on to it for a long time,
and that's tough. I think it still just sticks with
you. You know, you can't get rid of it. It's happened,
It's real, it happened. You can work on yourself and
get rid of those little demons that you see that
you think other people are thinking and stuff like that.
You can clear that stuff, but the reality of the

(32:46):
situation is that it happened and it's there, so that
I can never get rid of. You can just become
like you can accept it that it happened and you
can now move on. And that's the beauty of sport
is because is what's beautiful about sports that you get
another opportunity. So come twenty nineteen, we had another opportunity. Bang,

(33:06):
it's time to go again. But this time around, I
went in with a little bit of a sore shoulder,
and unfortunately I had to come home. That replaced me.
I had to go home. So I think that like
the year building up to the twenty nineteen World Cup,
I found o my job was I had two kinds
of jobs. One was on the field to execute a
skill and win games. Of the ball in my hand.

(33:28):
And secondly was the experience of what I've experienced not
just through cricket, but also winning and losing and trying
to prep guys it would be amazing to win. I
haven't won one. I've seen other teams win and it
looks fucking great, I promise you, but I've lost a
lot and I want to tell you that that's not nice.

(33:49):
So if you don't win, this is the things that
you need to be aware of. And I felt like
that was kind of my role. Wins the World Cup
and I left and I haven't really played for South
Africa since. So my only hope is that there's not
a lot of guys that are in that setup right
now that were feeling what I felt and went through
what I felt for a long time, because it can
impact you for pretty much. It was a young team

(34:11):
for the rest of their careers, and you don't want
you don't want that. You know, you want these guys
to you want them to win walk Cups, not to
sit three or four years later with the same fucking
feeling you.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Know you're listening to. Ordinarily, speaking with Dale Stain, you
said that you finally sat down to watch that twenty
fifteen over last year, was it? Yeah, tell me about that.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
Well, that was terrible because we were in lockdown. I
think everyone was depressed at that point and probably put
on about ten kilos more from eating all the shit
that like is just around the house because there's nothing
to do. So one, I'm feeling terrible. I actually went
the other way, to be honest with you, Like a
lot of people like sat at home and they I

(35:00):
went the other way. I didn't eat a lot and
I actually lost a lot of weights. I weighed the
lowest I think I've ever weighed in my life since
finishing school. I dropped down to like seventy four seventy
five killers and I'm roughly around eighty eighty one eighty two.
So I lost quite some some weights. And that's what, like,
I'm not saying I was depressed, but like that's the
signs of what depression can do, is weight loss, you know,

(35:21):
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Because you were weighing up your future and things like
that at the time.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
I was looking at it all and like I'm like,
this is a year out of what I want to do,
and it's just you know, it was tough and it's like,
as a fast bowler, you don't. I'm thirty seven, thirty eight.
Now it's going to be difficult to kind of pick
up from this, you know, not only nor Kio who's
twenty five, fully fit and absolute machine. You know, I
know I need a little bit longer. So anyway, we

(35:51):
were sitting in a situation where no one was happy.
I don't think the world is happy. And then to
rub salt into the wound, South African Sport tav the
supersport starts to play like the disappointments of World Cups,
like fantastic, Thanks guys. I almost wanted to jump on
the phone to Alan Donald and all other fast bowlers
and other South Africans and Joina WhatsApp group and like

(36:13):
send them ice cream, Ben and Jerry's ice cream and
ship because it's like to see what they're doing to us, guys,
look at this, What the hell? But it was terrible.
But yeah, I watched the game. It wasn't a highlights
it was the whole game. So it was on TV
for the duration of the day, and I didn't watch the

(36:33):
whole game, and I focused in on like the last
three hours. So when I went and sat down. I
was watching it, and like anybody else, it's the first
time I'm watching it in like four years. So I
was sitting on the edge of my seat because it
was it was an exhilarating and exciting game, you know,
and then when you come on, I know the outcome,
but I'm still kind of fucking hoping that something's something

(36:55):
different is gonna happen, you know. And I watched the
six Balls and I just walked outside and that's absolutely
burst into tears, and it was it was just sad,
you know. It was a sad time, and there was
a sad that was a sad moment and my best
I was lucky that one of my best friends was
actually staying with us. My missus was reading or something
like that, and he just came outside and gave me

(37:15):
a big hug. And he's a bigger softie than I am.
So he started crying and I was like, can you
please stop fucking crying because now it's gonna make it
worse for me, and he's like, it's okay, it's okay.
I'm like, just let's you know, let's move on. But yeah,
it was the first time that I watched the six
balls that I bowled since, yeah, it had happened. It
was almost five years later.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
What were the tears about do you think?

Speaker 1 (37:37):
I think just everything. You know. At the time, it
was really difficult for the world. You know, we're all
in this lockdown and didn't know where we were going. Yeah,
it was just it was just tough, you know. And
then it just brought that that feeling back again. You know,
this is a sad, sad, sad time. It wasn't a
great time to watch that. I think if I had
been happy somewhere, I would have been like, you know,

(37:58):
that shit happens. It's okay, it's not problem. But I
think the moment was not a good times a pick.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Was it healing at all?

Speaker 1 (38:06):
A little bit? A little bit because it happened and
I was actually seeing somebody. I was seeing a psychologist.
When you start to decide that you're going to do
things like retire, and when you're looking at the end
of you start to question, there's a lot of questions
that come in is it the right thing to do?

(38:27):
I got to let go of a lot of things.
So it was suggested that I just go and speak
to somebody and just get the stuff off my chest
rather than just kind of with all these thoughts in
my head. And I was lucky enough that I had
a session with him in like two or three days
after it was on Zoom and I told him and
he's like, how do you feel? And I'm like, yeah,
at the moment, I was incredibly sad, but now like
I'm okay, you know, like it's not too bad, and

(38:50):
it was good to just be able to talk about
it and just kind of get that out.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
What other stuff were you talking about? And you don't
have to share anything you don't want to, but what
other stuff were you talking about with your psych Just I.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Was coming up to retirement, there was things like contracts
that weren't happening. I worry. I grew up in a
small town and like I grew up in a family
that didn't have a lot of money, and I provide
a lot for my family. I helped them out where
I can. And now all of a sudden, you know,
I'm not going to be earning what I am and
and I know that I've got to continue to provide

(39:22):
and help. So like that was a big concern for me.
I was like, how I'm gonna do this and I'm
fortunate that I've done well through my life, but I've
also like saved well. So like I start to worry,
I'm like, you know, what am I going to do?
And I'll panic a little bit. And so I had
to like speak to him and say him, these are
what I'm feeling, and he's like, okay, cool, you know,
let's speak to Dave, who's my manager, and he's as well,

(39:44):
he's also my financial advisor, that's what he does, and like,
let's just put a lot of this these worries to bed,
you know. And so a lot of these questions are
actually that worries that had in my mind were actually
not worries at all. In other people's opinions, they were
like we can, we can sort them up. But for me,
they were just, you know, they were causing massive headaches
and anxiety and all that kind of stuff. So it

(40:06):
was good to speak to him and then just understand
that it's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be okay. He
was kind of doing the same thing that I was
doing when I was in twenty fifteen, going to everybody
and tapping them on the shoulder saying it's gonna be okay.
So I actually asked my psychiatrists, psychologist, psychiatrist, to somebody
that can give you medication. He conned. I was like,
do you speak to somebody because you're going to have
to deal with my shit. He's like, I do. I'm okay,

(40:29):
don't worry about me. I'm like, because I'm worried about you.
We have this conversation. He's like, stop, this is about you.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
That once again speaks volumes to you that you're in
a sack session and you're worried about what the ski
is going to do with your shit.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
He's a nice guy. I just want to make sure
that he's okay. You know, everybody needs to have their
shit in order.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
I love that, but it speaks to the pressure that
you've clearly felt as a kid growing up and then
as an elite athlete. You've carried You seem to have
carried a lot on your shoulders, whether it was because
other people put it on you, or whether that's just
your personality type that you go jump on my back.

(41:12):
I'll take you there.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
I think for a long time I was also sheltered
from a lot of stuff. I must be honest with you,
like you know, there was a lot of things that
I was like kept away from even my family, like
you know certain like I don't know whether somebody had
passed away, or you know, my dog growing up had
died or whatever it is, and I would be playing

(41:36):
a test match or you know something, Well, my parents
got divorced. My parents got divorced. That's not an issue.
They're fully grown up. They're welcome and they're very happy
right now. My dad remarried my mom. They stoked, but
like they didn't like my family would shelter me from
a lot of this stuff and didn't tell me these
kinds of things, so that because you were playing, because
I was playing, they didn't want to, you know, have
me worry about this kind of stuff. And when I

(41:57):
was playing for South Africa, this goes even into South Africa.
We had somebody like Graham Smith who would shelter the
players from what's happening with the board like CSA like
we can pressure to do this. We've got you know,
quota system wants to go up and all of this
kind of stuff, and he would keep a lit on
a lot of that kind of stuff, which is don't
get me wrong, I mean it's very important that you know,
there's a lot of inclusion from South Africa's passing it.

(42:18):
I'm not against it. I'm just saying that Graham was
there sheltering us, and for a long period of time,
I just got to do what I love doing. And
then when I got to about twenty fifteen, maybe even
twenty fourteen, I became twenty thirteen, I became more a
senior player in the side and now has become more
and more aware of some of this other stuff. Eyes

(42:39):
wide open, eyes an arson to open up a little bit,
secrets from back home that are were kept from me
to make sure that I do well on the cricket field.
I was starting to come out and bubble out and
all of this, and all of a sudden, you realize
there's a lot more crap going on that you than
you thought. This road is not as smooth as it
as it was made out to be. The sweeping is

(42:59):
now staring. There's a lot of speed bumps and and
that kind of stuff. And I think then once I
started to become aware of all of this stuff, that's
when a lot of this, like I'm not going to
say I'm depressed, but a lot of this anxiety and
all that kind of stuff sot to kick in, and
worrying for family and worrying about teammates and their well
being and other people's well being really kicked into overdrive.

(43:22):
But for a long time, I just had to worry
about myself. I was sheltered a lot of the time.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
So it's a fine line between caring about others and
feeling anxious about others, and you were stepping over that line.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Yeah yeah, But now I'm just in full camode like
that's all.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
I do, full camera.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
I think my family called me ICU, like, can we
step into the ICU ord? You just you're gonna look
after you. Oh, you're gonna look after us.

Speaker 2 (43:58):
That is brilliant because that is so you. You really are.
Like you take drinks to security guards and you genuinely
they were thirsty. You genuinely. This is the thing about
you that I've realized is there's lots of people who
are nice, right, but you genuinely care about how people

(44:21):
are you do. I've seen it, not just with me,
but lots of people that you've come across while working
with you. You don't just ask how they're doing, to ask
the question and be polite, You genuinely care about the response,
and if the response is not a nice one, you
try to do something to change that.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
That's yeah, And I think that's one of the problems
that I've got in my life is because I'm not
saying I get involved, but I do take it on,
you know now especially, and then that's it eats up
a little bit of me a little bit, you know,
I do care, but like it means that my worrying
and my anxiety goes up just a little bit every
single time. But I'm fine, I don't mind, Like I'm

(45:01):
all for it.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Does your anxiety worry you a little bit?

Speaker 1 (45:04):
Uh? It does. And I'm no hippie or anything like that,
so I'm not against like if someone had to say
he has some medication or something like that, but I'm
I'm I don't take anything. I'm pretty much high on
life really, and.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
The amount of caffeine you drink me the Coca Cola.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Sitting next, I drink a lot of Coca cola. Just
to debunk what anybody's heard. I do drink about two
liters as of coke a day.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I've seen it.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
And now Lisa, who's the manager, has introduced me to
a single espresso on top of a cappuccino in the morning,
and I am bouncing off walls.

Speaker 2 (45:41):
It's bad, just quietly for anyone who's listening who suffers
from anxiety. That is not a good medical advice from Towns.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Not a good idea at all. Promise you talk, Foster,
is you think faster than you You need to slow
down And I'm not slowing down.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
The injuries, the shoulder injury was the worst one you
went through, right, how much physical pain were you in?

Speaker 1 (46:04):
That was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.
Like physical pain is the worst thing I've ever felt
in my life. It happened broke the It's called the
corocoid process. It sits in the front over here. It's
like a little bone and your peck kind of hangs
off of It's almost like a hangar for that muscle,
and the shoulder bone kind of popped out and hit

(46:26):
it and broke it clean in half. And that was
That was a delivery that I bowled to. I think
Wada was batting in Perth and as it happened, I
heard this this crack, and I thought maybe the infraspinatus,
which is the muscle that sits behind your shoulder kind
of helps is infraspinasus And I got to remember the
other one kind of helps the shoulder move. I thought

(46:47):
that had just snapped. And I was like, cool, that's
six to eight weeks. That's fine. They'll you know, I'll
go and probably have surgery and they'll reattach that and
it's a muscle, it will be fine. But then, yeah,
when you got to the hospital and they did the
mrin and they're like, oh, you know, the coracoid's clean
in half. And the doctors said to me, did you
fall off a ladder or did you have motorbike accidents?

(47:07):
How did this happen? I said, I was bowling cricket.
He's couldn't believe it, but yeah, pain is the worst
pain I've ever felt. I walked off the field and
walked straight into the dressing room. The fizzio said, jump
on the jump of the fizzy bed. That's have a look,
and I just bent down on my knees. That the
fizzier bed was round about like head high at that point,
and I bent down and again, like this time, I

(47:27):
was crying because it was so sore, like put tears
in my eyes, like it was that sore. Pain was
just shooting through the back and like down the front,
and probably a little bit of a little bit of
tears because it was also that was that that was
that Now, you know, I knew something was really bad,
but that was pain. That was really sore.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
How much did you play with the pain once you
started to come back from that?

Speaker 1 (47:53):
Once I came back from that, then it was every
day like it never got the same for the rest
of your career, For the rest of my career, Yeah,
it was never the same. Wo afterwards, I could still bowl,
like wasn't an issue. Bowling wasn't an issue, but pain
was there, Like neurally, pain was there. It wasn't going anywhere.
That came from my neck into my shoulder, down my

(48:13):
shoulder towards the elbow, but especially like in that top
that padding like you know what your collar boners, there's
a little bit of like a muscle, there's padding there,
especially there into my neck. It was just sore, like
like eight out of ten, saw like at least a
seven turn eight out of ten. So when I saw
my shoulder doctor and I said to him, I'm only

(48:34):
going to focus on twenty twenty cricket. Right now, I said,
you need to give me something, give me some painkillers
that is just going to take the pain away, because
I honestly can't deal with this anymore, Like I don't care.
So he was like, all right, cool. So he gave
me like a dose of stuff that I took and
that worked for a good couple months and then your

(48:55):
body starts to get used to it and then you
just back into that pain again. But by the end,
now I'm not gonna lie like I was fine. I
actually felt the best I felt in a long time.
It spending really quickly, and yeah, I think I just
probably knew that the writing was on the wall for me,
like not in terms of physical, just like mental. I

(49:16):
was like, I don't want to do this anymore, you know,
And I think when I released that, I started to
feel good again, and I was then I started question.
I'm like, oh, maybe I can do this for a
little bit longer, and then I have to look in
the mirror and go, dlle, just have a real conversation
with yourself. You don't want to do this anymore, you know,
it's crap.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Step into the ICU with yourself, start caring and have
a conversation with yourself.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
A lot of people say that to me. They're like,
you should really start to take care of yourself and
think about yourself. And I'm like, okay, so I go
and buy a new surfboard.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
How much did the day to day pain impact you
in your day to day life, because I mean, chronic
pain is hard to live with.

Speaker 1 (49:58):
When I had the shoulder surgery, I just said to
the doctor, He's like, look, he comes and he gets
you to sign a consent form. Sorry, and because you
don't know whether it's going to be a success or not.
And I said to him, okay, cool, do you think
I'll be able to bowl again? And he said I
don't know. I said, okay, do you think I can
at least cost like fishing? And he's like, it's like,

(50:21):
I think you can do that. And I said, all right, cool.
If I have a kid, do you think I'll be
able to throw the ball for the kid to like,
you know, hit the ball and stuff like that. He said,
I think you'll be able to do that. But being
an elite athlete bowling one hundred and fifty one hundred
and fifty five, because that's the dream. I don't know
if you'll be able to do that. I said, oh,
that's fine. At least I can do those other things.

(50:41):
Let's do it. And we did that, and yeah, for
six months it was hard, like not being able to
pick up my arm and it sounds hard, terrible, but
not being able to shower properly, like where you dry yourself,
you know, or go to the bathroom. It's like, now
it's my right arm, I'm right hand. It's everything that
has to be in the left hand. Drive All that
kind of crap really is not It's not a vibe,

(51:04):
I can promise you. But then the chronic pain afterwards
was not great, Like sleeping becomes difficult, just the shooting
pain into the neck becomes really really painful and shitty
and creates headaches. You get headaches, like it's not it's
not a vibe. But then it's kind of it's gone away,
like now I'm absolutely fine. And the reason why it's

(51:24):
gone away because I don't bowl anymore.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
It is an unnatural thing to do bowling.

Speaker 1 (51:29):
Yeah, and I did it, you know, bubble yoh. When
I had to do my quarantine, I was so bored.
Seven days in the room whatever, it is. I caught
myself shadow bowling in the room. I think I told
you this, and I had to again have another conversation
with myself and said, well, what do you do? Don't
you ever do that again? Those days are garden baddy.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
I wouldn't visualize you having a comment. Do you actually
stare at yourself in the mirror.

Speaker 1 (51:54):
And just look at myself and just say, don't shake
their head? No, no, no, the long hair.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
You have longer hair than me at the moment? Is
there a sense of freedom that come you've spoken about
the pressure and the injuries. Is there a sense of
freedom or was it a sadness? Or how did you
feel when you finally made the call to call it quits?

Speaker 1 (52:15):
Absolute freedom? Happy, so happy. Went on a fishing trip
with my best mates and it's great because I didn't
see him a lot, and we were on the water
and we were talking, talking, talking, and at the start
of the trip I'd said to him and told him
my concerns and why I wanted to play and why
you know, I wanted to do the gigs a little
bit longer. Like I was like, if I do two

(52:37):
or three more gigs, you know I can make this
amount of money, I can look after my family. I
can do this, my sisters wanting to do this. He
wanted to start a business. I'm like, I can help you,
and I really wanted to do it, and he's like, you,
you do realize that you're doing this for everybody else
and not for yourself. And I knew that when I
played cricket, Like if I played to play, I got

(52:57):
all the accolades that I wanted. I've got wickets, I
had success, I earned money, you know, I won awards
and all that kind of stuff because I was just
playing the game. The moment I started to focus on
something like the outcome, like I'm going to get paid
or I'm going to get this record, or I'm going
to do this, shit just became so much more difficult
to achieve. And we had nice chats for we extended

(53:18):
the trip by another two days. And when I left
that trip, I sit him, I'm done. I think. I
got home on the Monday and I told my agent,
who's also one of my best friends, You're just like
my best friend who manages me. I just said to him,
I'm done and I'm going to announce it tomorrow. And
he's like, just put the brakes on that for twenty

(53:38):
four hours and I'm like why. He's like, I just
need to let all your sponsors know that you're not
doing this anymore. I said, okay, fine, and he came
back to me the next day and every one of
them were happy. They were like, we fully support you,
U stall with you. You can go ahead. And the
Wednesday I put a thing out there and said I'm finished.
No was it happy?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
So you finished up now? So nine we were doing
this podcast. I got in contact with one of your mates.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
Which he didn't tell me about.

Speaker 2 (54:04):
This interesting no and this here. It's all good, I promise,
so more. Name Morchael, good team mate of yours. What
a legend soon to be an Australian. Let's be honest.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Married you're really Australian.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
He should be if he's not already married to Ross Kelly,
a wonderful human being also a sports broadcaster. So here's
his message.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
Hello. Know it's dell Stain the Arrow. Where do I start?
I sometimes I just like these sort of questions, because
you know, to do it justice just I don't think
I can do it. He's he was an absolute legend
on the field. But I think as a mate and
as a as a human off the field, he ticks

(54:45):
all the boxes. Very humble, You'll give all this time
for no matter what the person is, for a cat,
for a dog. He's just got this warm, loving person
and he makes time for for everybody. I think on
the field, drive what I love about him was that,

(55:07):
you know, he had a hell of a lot of success,
but that never changed him. Just him always putting his
arm around sort of newcomers that will come into the side.
I think the odder we get, you know, sometimes you'll
you'll feel that you need to protect your your your spot,
but that wasn't the case with Dale. He was always
the first guy there to welcome a player, a new bowler.

(55:29):
Always well, he was always there sort of talking to
him about fast bowling and just making sure that the
guy felt comfortable in the space and that he was settled.
And yeah, I think we can all see no sort
of just life after cricket as well. You know how
he goes about life. He's a very humble guy. He's

(55:49):
honestly a true friend. He's a guy that you can
you can call and the night to come and pick
you up from airports and to drive you back home
off the night out. He's very responsible human being, very resilient.
I mean that guy played for a long time with
a broken shoulder, a lot of injections and a lot of tablets,
and he fought through that. And then to fee him

(56:13):
to see him come back after that big injury and
still go and dominate and become, you know, the leading
wicket taker for South Africa was great and it is
really you know, a spot or slot that he deserves.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
And yeah, he.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
Became a household name from from Palabora. I think that
also takes a lot, just the resilience and the character
he showed growing up from sort of Pala Bora, where
you know, a lot of things are not given to
you, you need to earn it. And I think that sums
him up also as a characterist, the fact that he's
a hard working guy. He had fought very hard to

(56:49):
all success and he did that. He could have easily
fallen or fallen off the of the wagon, but yeah,
he was very determined and very focused to become the
base in the world and it did have happened to
a better man.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
He's a nice guy.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
It's not a bad summary though, No he's lying.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
You know. I've known Morne for a long time. I
want to tell you how so I played against Morner
in school. Like he was. He was always as tall
as he is now. He was just a lot skinnier,
so he just looked like as cheap as he was scary,
and the same thing as Ab. I met Ab when
I was about ten. I think he was nine. But anyway,
long story short, Mornee comes to the Titans, and the

(57:32):
Titans is the franchise in South Africa. It's who we
played for in Pretorium and I lost my contract to
the Titans and they signed They signed Fuff, one guy
from the Titans, and they signed Morne, who was from Easterns.
It's when Easterns and Titans joined to become one. We took.
Instead of having ten provinces or something, we broke down
to six. So joined and I was out of a

(57:53):
contract and I had a coaching job at the Titans.
I had to go and coach to make money at
this point, but Mornee was a rookie. He was being paid.
Then I walked into the dressing room because I used
to steal the milk the coffee monk to have my
wheat picks in the morning and I had no cash,
so this is what I did. And I walked in
and this is one of the first times I had
a conversation with more name, greeted him, how'sard? And we

(58:15):
sat there and we had a bowl of wheat picks together,
and he was eighteen and I was nineteen, and I've
known him my whole life since. We've been like best
mates since over a bowl of wheat picks.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
I love that. I love that. Is that nice to
know that your tall mates, that's how they think of you,
and they think of the person before they think of
any wickets or whatever you do.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Yeah, I think so that's the most important thing. I
think you won success on the field. Obviously you want
to do well and stuff like that, but like I
think we just judged on who we are as people
at the end of the day. I mean, Morna is
one of the nicest guys in the world, you know,
on and off the field. If you don't ask anybody
in the world. And I'm not saying this like as
a reply to what he's saying. He genuinely is. Even
now when I like sit and I'm like courts to

(59:01):
who do you want to have win New Zealand or Australia.
I don't. I don't care, you know, Like I've got
so many, so many nice guys in both teams. I
just hope the best team wins on the day, you know.
That's all I can say. And maybe I became soft
over my last couple of years as a player, and
also a good reason why I had to step away
from the game, because I lost that edge that I
once had, that kill it instinct and everything. You know,

(59:23):
I've become a circus line. You know, I'm not that nature,
the wild one in the that would just take you
and rip you apart, you know, So I think that's
more important.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Now at the backstages, You've just given me goosebumps without analogy.
That's so fascinating. Have you thought that for a while
or have you just come to.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
That realization said that right now?

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Yeah, Well, I've got to say that the circus line
has been bloody lovely to get to know Dale. I
honestly I had no idea what you would be like
to work with because, like I say, I saw you
for years, covered it for years you playing cricket, but
I didn't know you as a person, and you are

(01:00:05):
very easy to get to know as a person because
you open yourself up so generously to people. And I
just want to say you've been a joy to work
with and to become friends with. I hope absolutely, And yeah,
I thank you for being so open. But most of all,
I just thank you for being the bloke that you are,
because I think it's pretty great.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
No, thank you, No, it's been great. So I've had
a lot of time from your pitch reports of the
most of the going to do. Other than that, it's
been a absolute blast.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
See if you made it look easy first time, then
it would make people like me have been trying to
do it for two decades really bad.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
I am totally impressed with Like, yeah, I'd love to
tell the story about you quickly if I cared, Like
this is crazy, So I rock up and narrowly trying
to get her yeah piece and the whole you know
contraption that you strap onto your back, your plug into
her dress. It's the size of I don't know, like

(01:01:03):
a cell phone. It's quite big. Just for the viewers
to understand the size, and with ten seconds to go,
she had about two minutes to get this on and
she's struggling, struggling, struggling. With about ten seconds to go,
she had three people around her, and you put your
stuff down on the floor and I saw the director
go five. He puts out his hand five four, three
to one, and without panic, you picked up your clipboard,

(01:01:25):
looked straight into the camera and said, good afternoon everybody,
and welcome to Abadabi. And just like that, the amazing
No one in the world would have known that. There
was absolute panic with one second to go before we
went live on the TV, and I was like, that's
why you do this job, That's why you do this job.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
With Darren Sammy staring.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
Me down, I could see he was like panicking panic
that she nailed it. Thank you, well done.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
That live TV and fun performing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Dale.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
Thanks so much for your timing being really generous. I
really appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Very welcome tax on time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Ordinarily Speaking, and
once again thanks to Dale for allowing us to spend
some time with him. If you want to get in
touch with the podcast at Ordinarily Underscore Speaking, on Instagram
or on Twitter at Narrowly Underscore Meadows. A new episode
will drop next week.

Speaker 1 (01:03:00):
Show me that you want a bigo