THE LIMELIGHT may be stolen by Dale Steyn, but in the strapping young speedster Morne Morkel, South Africa could possess the surprise package of the series. Like Australia’s Stuart Clark, who finished as leading wicket-taker in his first series against England, Morkel has the ability to generate the sort of bounce that can discomfort even the best. What he also commands is healthy speed - only Steyn is likely to be faster.

England must be prepared.

They have come across Morkel only once, during the world Twenty20 championship. He played some Twenty20 for Kent last year and briefly for Yorkshire in May before picking up a hamstring problem, but he has yet to come across most of England’s Test players.

England’s research will tell them that his bowling has been measured in excess of 95mph and that on a recent tour of India he twice had Rahul Dravid caught at the wicket.

Jacques Kallis and Allan Donald believe that Morkel, aged 23 and capped six times, has the potential to be one of the world’s best fast bowlers.

England ought to be wary of the fact that Morkel has long dreamed of playing at Lord’s. They are used to the ground inspiring countless foreigners but this is especially true of the South Africans, who have won their past three Tests there decisively. “I’ve never played at Lord’s, except in my imagination when I was playing cricket with my brothers in our back yard at home,” Morkel said. “Each week, we would cut our pitch on the lawn and pretend it was a different ground, though there was no slope on our Lord’s pitch. I don’t think my dad would have liked it if we’d cut a slope in his lawn."

The Lord’s slope has played havoc with the lines of many bowlers, but Morkel is unconcerned. “I’ll adjust,” he says. He can call on the advice of Makhaya Ntini, who took 10 wickets in the match five years ago, and Kallis, who has played at Lord’s many times for Middle-sex and South Africa. With Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff confined to their counties, Steyn and Morkel will have the fast lane to themselves. While Steyn will swing the ball off a full length, Morkel will be asking different questions with much shorter deliveries.

“I try to work around being a Harmison or Flintoff type of bowler, who hits the deck hard and gets some movement off the seam,” Morkel added. “I’m 6ft 5in and should be aiming to use my height to my advantage.” In India, Morkel targeted Dravid as “his man”, wanting to bowl at him the moment he arrived at the crease, so his success was all the more meritorious. He declines to say which of the England batsmen he has in his sights.

Morkel’s family will be out in force for his much-anticipated Lord’s appearance. His brother Albie, whom England will encounter in the one-day series, will break off from his commitments with Durham to attend, and his parents are flying in from South Africa. The Morkels are in many ways a typical Afrikaner family, deeply religious and closely tied to their community. A generation ago, their passion for cricket would have set them apart, but now it is merely further evidence of the Afrikaners’ belated enthusiasm for a sport they once reviled. There is a branch of the Morkel family in Cape Town that is heavily involved in the wine trade, but to the Morkels who live around the Vaal Triangle, cricket is the only business in town. Morne and his older brothers Albie and Malan (whose career was thwarted by injury) owe their cricketing education to their father Albert, who appeared fleetingly at provincial level before turning to coaching. He now runs his own private cricket academy, through the doors of which go more than 200 children each week.

It has been a great help to Morne that he has played so much of his professional cricket with Albie (who shared the new ball with him when Morne made his first-class debut) and that he has another close Afrikaner ally in AB de Villiers, who will bat at No 6 for South Africa. For much of the past five years, Morne, Albie and AB have shared a house in Pretoria, where they lived and breathed the game. “It helped me that I talked so much about cricket to two people who could tell me what a batsman would be thinking,” Morkel says. He now regards the South African team as extended family, saying he has never felt nervous playing for his country: “If I walk on to the field with Graeme Smith or Jacques Kallis I feel comfortable. We have a good mix of experience and youthful energy. We have really gelled as a team.”

Morkel inherits the role filled by Shaun Pollock towards the end of his career, that of coming on first change behind Steyn and Ntini, charged with maintaining the pressure, and batting at No 8 with instructions to hold up an end. Morkel knows he has underachieved with the bat but believes he is capable of averaging 25 in Tests.

He will be judged, though, by what he does with the ball. “Our attack is one of our strengths,” he said. “We've just done well on the subcontinent and have the bowlers to take 20 wickets. I love one-day cricket but Test cricket is the ultimate. I would love to be seen one day as a Test ‘great’.”

Explore Cricket

• Counties

• Live Scores