Can Dale Steyn ever match the greatness of Wasim Akram?

[Buffet]

But one point you should also consider is that Akram bowled a lot on dead Asian tracks. Even in his era, those pitches produced 500+ scores.

That's a fair point.

One thing posters forget here, If you allow less cameras era to Steyn and allow him to bowl with old ball then it's fair to say that he would get lot more wickets. We have seen few examples with Faf and all....

 

[The_Odd_One]

That's a fair point.

One thing posters forget here, If you allow less cameras era to Steyn and allow him to bowl with old ball then it's fair to say that he would get lot more wickets. We have seen few examples with Faf and all....

I rate Steyn higher than Akram in tests because he took more top order wickets. Several times, Akram's wickets were tailenders. He was probably the greatest bowler to clean up the tail. I have not seen anyone better than him at that.

 

[soso_killer]

This thread was made in 2012 and is kind of irrelevant today.
When it comes to Tests, cricket has never had a greater match winner. For all the talk of green wickets in the Savannah, Akram was provided with the same conditions if not better yet has nothing to show for it.

Steyn has helped his country win matches against the best teams of his era home or abroad (India, Pakistan, UAE, England, Sri Lanka). That for me transcends stats, performance is what matters. I haven't had a look at stats, but here is a question for statisticians what does a guy like Pollock average country wise (compared to Steyn)? But the most fundamental question is how many matches did he win for SA?

 

[Midwinter13992]

IMO Steyn is already better than Wasim...He is averaging 22 with a strike rate of 40 and he has excellent performances on all type of wickets .. Plus the era he is playing makes his case even stronger ...
Steyn > Wasim/Waqar

 

[Zak_Fan]

It has been a while since Steyn surpassed Akram and I am pleasantly surprised to see a consensus on this.