Why isn’t Dale Steyn playing? Is there a place for Dale Steyn in the Sunrisers Hyderabad playing eleven? With Trent Boult in the ranks, will Steyn get a chance this Pepsi IPL at all? All these questions were finally put to rest after Steyn featured in the playing eleven after three games into the competition. The wait was finally over and Steyn replaced Boult against the Delhi Daredevils on Saturday.

He bowled his quota of four overs with a lot of heart and had one wicket to show at the end of it. The moment he got his national teammate JP Duminy out bowled, a typical Steyn celebration followed - the fist pump, the eyes popping out and the nerves on the neck screaming out jubilation; that is how much Dale Steyn enjoys bowling. “I kind of feel that I was put on this earth for a small period of time to run and bowl,” exclaimed Steyn later in a chat with IPLT20.com. You hardly take time to understand how much Steyn enjoys bowling and how eager he was to get on the field and try to make the most of it. Enough said. Here’s Steyn speaking about the ‘wait’ and the desire of sharing the new ball with Trent Boult at some point of time in the tournament. Read on to find out more.

Happy to be back and running after spending three games on the bench?

Definitely! Any cricketer would be happy on the field rather than sitting on the sidelines. At the end of the day the team result matters more. I would have loved to have pulled off a win tonight. That is what matters most. It is great to be on the park but there is nothing better than winning cricket matches.

Did you have any qualms losing out on a place to Trent Boult?

Definitely not. I think the strength of our side is bowling, so we powered ourselves with our overseas batters which doesn’t leave a lot of space for the overseas bowlers. I think Trent is a kind of guy who has just come out of a fantastic World Cup where he had 20-odd wickets. He offers something different to the team being a left-arm swing bowler and we have got a bunch of right-arm bowlers in the side. So it is nice to have that difference. I have got no problems losing out on a place to Trent. He was the in-form bowler coming out of the World Cup and it would have been silly if he was the guy on the bench at the start of the IPL.

Having said that, wouldn’t you love to share the new ball with him?

I would love that to happen. I think bowling alongside Trent would be amazing especially after the kind of World Cup that he has had. You kind of just feed off that energy. I am a player who enjoys playing with players that have got good energy about them. David Warner is another kind of guy who has just won the World Cup. It is great to play alongside him because you can just feel all the passion and the energy that he has especially after winning that World Cup. There are numerous guys in our team that have that. But when they have major self-success, you can feel it a lot more. After Trent’s World Cup it would be amazing to open the bowling with him.

How much do the two of you discuss bowling off the field?

(Laughs) It is not like we call a meeting and discuss bowling. It is always a general chit-chat. You start off talking about the weather and you realise the next thing you are talking about is swing bowling. The conversations get thrown around all the time, not just between me and him but amongst everybody. It is a cricket team, you talk cricket all the time.

On a personal front, happy with the performance in your first game this IPL?

I love bowling anytime; whether it is in the game or in a practice or warm-up. I just love bowling. I kind of feel that I was put on this earth for a small period of my life, to run and bowl and express how I can do something through the skill and art of fast bowling. Anytime I get an opportunity to bowl, I love it and that is where the wild celebrations come from. I had a great time bowling today; it would have been beautiful if we had pulled off a win.

10 runs needed from the last over. Did you guys back yourself to get those runs?

You always back yourself to win it. You always back yourself to win it even if you have to get fifty of three overs. We had a couple of mishaps in the field today. We weren’t at our best. I think a couple of fumbles and a bit of errors here and there at the end of the day count big time. You don’t realise it at the beginning of the game but it is kind of like an airplane; just going offcourse little bit at the start of the journey and by the end of its journey it is miles away from where it wants to be. It was a similar situation today were we just bowled short and there are a few things on the field which we could have prevented. But that is cricket and you get on with it.

You are no stranger to bowling the last over of the match. You feel Nathan Coulter-Nile was spot on bowling the last over tonight?

Anything can happen. If Mayank Agarwal wouldn’t have dived and stopped that ball, it would have gone for a six. We would have won the game and people would have been looking at the lines and lengths that he bowled. You have to look at it both ways. You have to look at how the bowler has bowled and how the batsmen have played the delivery and also who is batting up there. If you have got two top order batsmen like a Ravi Bopara or Eoin Morgan, 10 runs off the last over is a breeze at most times.

Coming into the tournament, have you got set plans or are you someone who believes in going into the tournament with a free mind?

You have to have plans and come up with an idea or strategy as to how you want to go about doing things but you have to adapt at the same time. Everybody has got to have the skills to be able to adapt. It is not like you tell yourself ‘today I am going to bowl a wide yorker’. It doesn’t make sense if you haven’t practiced a wide yorker; it is a skill that you have to have. It doesn’t make sense to bowl a bouncer if you are not a bouncer bowler. Every bowler will have their skills that they have to practice and come into the game with an idea or plan of what they want to do. If the plan has changed, you should be able to do that.

I will just look to adapt as the tournament goes on. I can only focus on the next delivery. I back the fact that I can bowl most deliveries that I want to bowl, starting from the wide yorker to the straight yorker; starting from the wide slower ball to the straight slower ball, wide bouncer to a straight bouncer etc. I feel I have got most bases covered. It just depends on who you are bowling to and what the conditions are and what you want to bowl.

You picked up 11 wickets in the previous edition of the IPL. Is it something that you would want to work on this IPL? Bettering that number?

You always try to better yourself, but to be honest with you it is difficult to know how many you want to take. I want to take as many as I can. I would like to take all ten in the twenty four balls that I am allowed to bowl each game, but I know that is not going to happen. You don’t know how many games you are going to play so it is just unrealistic to set yourself that kind of goals. It is important to focus on what is lying in front of you and that is the next ball. All I can do is run in and bowl and worry about the next one.