Steyn Controls Australian Batsman

The only thing remotely wicked about Dale Steyn is his sense of humour. Unaffected by the accolades heaped on him, the world's best bowler has also been known to be one of the nicest and one of the cheekiest.

Whether it's admitting to having a midnight McFlurry in London the night before the final day of the Lord's Test in August or confessing with a straight face to quite enjoying the opportunity to "basically kill someone with two bouncers an over, or try, legally," Steyn is the kind of player journalists like because he does not hold back. For that reason, he is also the kind of bowler batsmen dread.

When Steyn decides he is in the mood, it's time to be afraid. Very afraid. He does not only let it fly but does so with incredible control and is able to achieve swing in conditions where others would not even be able to make the ball veer a touch. The hour after tea at the SCG on Sunday was one of those times.

With the tour match going nowhere, as most tour matches tend to, Graeme Smith decided it would be a good idea to let the quicks off their leashes for a little while and Steyn went wild. Perhaps one of the thoughts in the back of his mind was that Shane Watson has been injured and Ricky Ponting remains a doubt for the first Test so one of Rob Quiney or Phillip Hughes may earn a place in the XI and he wanted to rough them up. Knowing Steyn, that was probably not the case, but he did it anyway.

In typical bloody-minded fashion, he bowled his five overs as though they were his last. Fast seems too gentle a word to describe it; Steyn was positively zooming. He reached a speed that Jacques Rudolph, who was fielding in the slips, thought was "around 150kph," and had the ball hissing past Hughes' ears. "I played against him a couple of years ago where he bowled the same kind of spell," Rudolph said with a knowing smile which suggested he was pleased not to have to be on the end of Steyn again.

Rudolph said Steyn used the opportunity to "get into good rhythms," ahead of what is expected to be a seamer's playground in Brisbane. "It seams and that suits us because those are the kind of wickets we play on at home," Rudolph said, before adding a cautionary word. "For our bowlers, it will be important not to get carried away with the bounce. The length will be important, and we need to settle into that as quickly as possible."