Dale Steyn recounts lucky escape from a venomous Black Mamba on Instagram

Steyn might be an adventure buff off the field, but this was one encounter he was happy to avoid.

South African fast bowler Dale Steyn is not having the best of times of late, due to his recent injuries, that have kept him out of contention from six of the past eight Tests the Proteas played. He has also been ruled out of the ongoing ODI series against England.

However, he enjoyed a huge slice of luck recently as he got away in time from a venomous Black Mamba snake after initially mistaking it for a harmless Brown House snake. 

Steyn, who is known to be an adventure buff, with dares like a dive in the Devil’s pool of the Victoria falls to his credit, was making the most of his injury-enforced time off the field with a safari in an isolated region of the Kruger National Park in Northeastern South Africa. The 32-year-old, who was travelling along with a friend, stopped his car and stepped out to move what they presumed to be a Brown House snake, that had been injured after being hit by a car, away from the road, before realising the danger in time.  

It was actually a Black Mamba, a snake which is famous for being the longest species of venomous snakes on the African continent, and Steyn, who is usually the one to strike fear with his fast bouncers and deadly yorkers at the opposition batsmen, was happy to back out, and concede defeat, this time around. 

"So this poor guy was hit by a car, we stopped to move him out the road thinking it was a brown house snake," Steyn wrote in his message alongside a brief footage he had posted on Instagram.  

"Got a little too close and then realised what we were actually dealing with! Mr Black Mamba!”

Steyn added a reminder note to his post stating that while it was all well and good trying to be adventurous, one should also be wise enough to avoid running into dangers.

"This post is not to show how brave we were, it's to show that if you don't know what you dealing with then best you leave it alone! Lesson learnt! #wildouthere #blackmamba."

Here’s Steyn’s Instagram post in full: