Performance of the Day - Dale Steyn

Two Test series are most unsatisfactory: you're just settling into the rhythm of Test match cricket and assessing the players' form then, all of a sudden, there's a board full of sponsors logos with one captain explaining how he can take some positives from the series and the other saying that his young side are at the start of something quite special. But such series are not without heroes and the recently completed South African rout of New Zealand produced one old one and two new(ish) ones.

Jacques Kallis was at his imperious best scoring 346 runs at 115, which surprised nobody. What did make cricket watchers sit up and take notice was the form of two 24 year-olds who made their debuts prematurely some three years ago and have struggled to establish themselves in the team: batsman Hashim Amla and bowler Dale Steyn.

Amla was the rock on which Kallis constructed match winning positions, anchoring the order with 291 runs at 145, while Steyn was the rapier who delivered the kill with 20 wickets at 9.2 shared evenly across the two Tests. Either are admirable candidates for Performance of the Day, but Steyn shades it with his consecutive ten wicket hauls. Ten wickets for a speedster is rare - Steyn has chalked up two such feats in 15 tests, or one more than Brett Lee and Stephen Harmison have managed in their 114.#

[The Tooting Trumpet] [Image:Getty]