Quotes from Dale Steyn

I want to be a good cricketer, but I am a person first and a cricketer second. I won't always be a cricketer, but I will always be a person.

I love playing cricket. I wake up every morning and I can't see myself doing anything else.

I have never gone into a competition wanting to lose. I have always gone in wanting to win.

You got to be street smart I suppose when you bowl in India. You can't bowl at the same pace at the same place. Guys will work you out.

When I am off the field, I am the calm, very quiet kind of easy-sailing ocean, and then when I am on a hot streak with a cricket ball, I can be the most disastrous waters you have ever been in.

Someone like Shane Warne played the game on and off the field really well and got into guys' heads. Even though he couldn't bounce you and hurt you physically, he was verbally aggressive and would let you know he'd get you out. He made batsmen doubt themselves. I learned from players like him and made a point of incorporating it into my own game.

I think the more common players who have been around for a while - Joe Root, Alastair Cook, Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad - those guys I know of, they're fantastic players.

If I wanted to do anything in the coaching world, I would probably need to upskill myself.

Right from the start of my career I was surrounded by people like Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Graeme Smith, who gave 100 percent in every performance.

I could bowl really fast and as the years went on I started to develop more skills - I learnt how to swing the ball a little bit, use the crease a little bit more. But I knew what my skill was and that was to run in and bowl fast.

If you are just constantly doing the same thing, good batters can adjust.

I mean everyone's always spoken about fast bowlers and especially myself as a strike bowler, but I look at myself as somebody who could hold down the runs, you know, over 200 games, I've taken a lot of wickets but I've got a pretty decent economy rate.

I still don't know why batsmen are taking so much time to figure me out.

When I'm running in to bowl, I am always thinking of taking a wicket.

That's a beautiful thing about India, they got such a big pool of players to call upon. If somebody gets injured, the replacements are generally pretty good.

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.

When you're playing against a team like India you're always going to struggle, especially as they bat all the way down the order to No. 9 and 10.

With my work schedule, it's difficult for me to spend quality time with my dogs. But whenever I'm home, I make it a point to spend as much time as possible with my dogs.

But I love bowling in India, the grounds are quite flat whereas in South Africa you feel you are running uphill.

Once I step over that white line I become The Bowler.

I want to keep experimenting and trying to change my game.

I come across as quite aggressive and quite in people's faces and everything like that, but I know where to draw the line.

When I bowled to batters like Michael Vaughan or Jacques Kallis who were classical, technically perfect, sound batters, I always found that I could get them out.

I would love to be in quarantine with someone like Quinny de Kock. He is one of my favourite people in the world.