Cast an eye over South Africa’s much-vaunted pace attack and guess which bowler is most likely to intimidate England’s batsmen over the next few weeks. There are a couple of behemoths in Morne Morkel, at 6ft 6in, and Andre Nel, two inches shorter but broad as a barn door, and Makhaya Ntini, not quite so tall, but powerfully muscular. Then there is Dale Steyn, slight and wiry, no midget at 6ft, but in the modern world of giant fast bowlers, he must feel like Gulliver in Brobdingnag.

“When we’re bowling, Morne will come over and put his arm on my head and lean on me like I’m a gatepost or something — the big guys give me a lot of stick,” Steyn said. “But somebody once said to me that dynamite comes in small packages. I’m happy to go with that.”

He may not look threatening, but Steyn is explosively quick and will be a real danger to English ribcages when the first npower Test begins at Lord’s on Thursday. From a low-slung action, he swings the ball late and has regularly been timed at around 95mph. After an annus mirabilis in which he has taken 78 wickets in his past 12 Tests, he is now ranked as the No 2 bowler in the world. Only Muttiah Muralitharan is above him.

But more troubling for England’s top order is that Steyn, 25, has a habit of hitting batsmen who fail to read his pace and trajectory. “I’m short, I’m skiddy and I’m quick, and I think that’s why I hit a lot of guys,” he said. “Batsmen don’t know whether to duck. And when they do duck, it can come through lower than they expect. That’s the beauty of being short.”

To meet Steyn in person, it is even harder to believe that he is possessed of such menace. There is a mischievous glint in his eye, a boyish grin and the bushy-tailed enthusiasm of someone who has been given his dream job. The fact that this involves inflicting pain on other people is just an unfortunate side-effect.

“Sometimes you have to rattle somebody to get a wicket,” he said. “It’s part of a fast bowler’s job to intimidate. You don’t want to see people stretchered off, but I’ve got to get my pads on at some point, so I may as well dish it out. I get a big kick out of it. I love being a fast bowler.”

When he made his Test debut against England in December 2004, the boy from Phalaborwa, 400km northeast of Pretoria, was clearly quick, but still rough around the edges. He had a short, unspectacular spell with Essex in 2005 and a more successful stint with Warwickshire last year. It is only in the past eight months that he has emerged as the smooth, sharp spearhead of South Africa’s potent attack.

The catalyst came when Vinnie Barnes, the Proteas’ bowling coach, suggested that Steyn straighten his run-up on the day before the first Test against New Zealand in November. He promptly took ten wickets in each of the next two Tests, 20 more in three matches against West Indies and, most impressively, a further 15 in three Tests in India. In the process, he reached 100 wickets in 20 Tests, breaking Allan Donald’s national record, and now has 120 victims in 23 Tests at an average of 21.60. His strike-rate of a wicket every 35.8 balls is the second-best in Test history.

“I’ve had a fantastic year, but it’s partly been down to the other guys because everyone’s been bowling well,” he said. “We’ve got guys that are tall, guys that swing the ball out and guys that swing it back, it’s just about the full package.”

Steyn was a little rusty in South Africa’s tour match against Middlesex this weekend, but that was his first first-class game for three months. In the meantime, he has played in the Indian Premier League, and with his girlfriend, Jeanné Kietzmann, an actress, he has moved into a three-bed apartment in Cape Town owned by Jacques Kallis.

Now he is relishing his first tour of England and his maiden appearance at Lord’s on Thursday. “I’ve played there a million times in my head,” he said. “I’ll be really nervous, I just hope I don’t get the jitters.”

When they see Steyn armed with the new ball, England’s opening batsmen could be forgiven for feeling jittery as well.

The first npower Test starts at Lord’s on Thursday.

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