"I can't see myself doing anything else. The desire is still there to play at the highest level, to get batters out"
Tuesday 11 February 2020 15:26, UK
Dale Steyn says he is not thinking about retirement as he aims to play a major role in South Africa's bid for a first T20 World Cup crown.
The 36-year-old quit Test matches in 2019 but says that was only so he could play for as long as possible in white-ball cricket and is in the Proteas' squad for the three-game T20I series against England.
Steyn, who took 439 wickets in 93 Tests, said: "The workload with Test cricket was too much as I want to extend my career for as long as I can. I love playing cricket.
"I wake up every morning and I can't see myself doing anything else. The desire is still there to play at the highest level, to get batters out and outsmart them. Once I have decided I don't want that I will walk away.
"I want to keep experimenting and trying to change my game. If I'm only going to play one more match, I want to take a wicket with every ball, not try and defend a boundary."
Steyn insists he will have somewhat of a mentor role going forward, starting with the series opener against England in East London on Wednesday, which is live on Sky Sports Cricket from 3.30pm.
The quick insists that the results against Eoin Morgan's men are secondary to player development with the main focus the T20 World Cup in Australia in October and November.
South Africa won the inaugural Champions Trophy in 1998 but have yet to make it past the semi-finals of either the 50-over or 20-over World Cups.
"This is a young group of players and my role is to orchestrate the bowling attack a little bit. I want to stand at mid-off and say to the bowler, 'what are you thinking?' and hopefully they can learn and get better," added Steyn.
"You want to win every game, obviously, but right now it is more about learning. If we win the World Cup, nobody is going to care if we lost to England in February."
While Steyn is hoping to use his experience to help the younger South African bowlers, there will be a member of the opposition watching him very closely as well with Mark Wood keen to learn from the veteran seamer.
"I am a big fan," said the England paceman. "As a fast bowler, he's got a similar skiddy sort of trajectory to me, someone that I've admired for a lot of years, someone that takes a lot of wickets and plays with a lot of passion.
"You can see how much he enjoys playing for South Africa so there are similarities between myself and him. But he's got an unbelievable record which I'd love to have.
"I've never actually played a game where I've been playing and he's been playing, so I'm looking forward to watching him bowl and how he goes about things.
"Little things like watching how he prepares as well, I think that will be quite nice to watch - bit of fast bowler's envy there so it will be nice to watch him go about his work."
Having been part of England's World Cup winning side last summer, Wood is hungry for more honours but knows their success will only make other teams more determined to beat them.
"I think you go out to win every game for England and in a big competition like that, there's plenty of good Twenty20 sides in the world and after winning the 50-over one there's still a target on our backs," he said.
"People want to beat us. I think it's no different in Twenty20.
"But I think we can beat anybody, we've just got to bring an intensity and a level that can match the South African team who without doubt are class. So we've got to raise our game."
Watch the first T20I between South Africa and England, at Buffalo Park in East London, live on Sky Sports Cricket from 3.30pm on Wednesday.
