In his eight Test matches, he played against fast bowlers including Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson for Australia; and Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Wayne Daniel and Vanburn Holder for the West Indies.
Eyeing Steele's prematurely greying hair at 33, Thomson asked: "Bloody hell, who've we got here, Groucho Marx?
When presenting Steele his cap in the dressing room before his debut, captain Tony Greig felt tears fall on his hand and considered that "Here was a man who would fight for me to the death".
[5] His ability to stand up to hostile fast bowling, which other batsmen had struggled to cope with, and attack with the hook shot, raised morale among his teammates and spectators alike.
In the following year, he commenced against the even more fearsome fast bowling attack of the West Indies by scoring a century at Trent Bridge.