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Pity everything is blocked off: Steyn on COVID-19 impact on sports

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Press Trust of India Johannesburg
Last Updated : Mar 19 2020 | 12:32 PM IST

Chilling at home after coming back from a coronavirus-forced "hotel arrest" in Pakistan, South African pacer Dale Steyn feels it's a pity that sporting events are being cancelled en masse due to the crisis as "if you take sport away, then I don't know really what we have."
"But now at the moment, you don't have that. In South Africa, we kind of like looking for things that unite people in big, big groups. When you don't have sport, it's like, oh, what do we fall back onto?
"And I think Nelson Mandela was the first person to really say that: sport unites people in a way that nothing else does. And if you take sport away, then I don't know really what we have. We're gonna have to work it all out."

"We were under that kind of hotel arrest - advised not to go out and wander the streets, which is totally fine; I don't want to break protocol and (have) something happen and be blamed for cricket never being played in Pakistan again because I did something stupid."
If he were to watch a match or two from the past on video while he is stuck at home, which would that be?
"And even the one in South Africa (2003) because that's when I really started to get into guys like Brett Lee, because I knew the possibility of me playing against them or meeting them was so much closer than what it was in, say, '92, when I first got introduced to the game."
Asked which team-mates he would to be quarantined with, Steyn said, " I would love to be in quarantine with someone like Quinny de Kock."

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First Published: Mar 19 2020 | 12:32 PM IST

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