Auckland: Proteas fast bowler Dale Steyn is known for his fiery on-field persona, but he was chilled to the bone when he awoke to news that the Cape Peninsula blaze was threatening to destroy his home.
Steyn told the Daily News today that only upon waking early on Monday in Canberra did he realise the scale of the devastation and the danger facing the people he had asked to look after his house in the Stonehurst Estate near Muizenberg.
“I was sitting in Canberra, woke up in the morning and had 80 messages and maybe 30 missed calls. I quickly jumped on it and realised the fires were a lot closer to my home than I initially thought,” said Steyn, who is preparing for tomorrow’s World Cup clash against Pakistan in New Zealand’s largest city.
“The scary part was when at 3.30am in Cape Town (about 12.30pm in Canberra), the people who were looking after my house said they were told to evacuate, they had five minutes and what did I want them to save from my house… I’ve never been more scared in my life.
“I’m sitting halfway across the world, and everything I’ve earned or got in my life, every wicket, ball, bit of clothing in my 31 years is in that house. It was pretty scary to think well, ‘what do I tell this person?’, they’ve got five minutes and they’ve got to take everything out,” an emotional Steyn said.
Fortunately for Steyn, the flames were doused just metres from his house, and this morning he expressed his gratitude to those who fought the devastating blazes.
“It’s just a tremendous job by all those fire-fighters and volunteers, who put their lives at risk. They’ve never met me before, they’ve never met most of the people, and they were just throwing themselves at it, and putting out those fires.”
Steyn said fellow cricketers Faf du Plessis and Jacques Kallis, who live in a different part of the same estate, were just as fortunate that their homes were not damaged. - Daily News