Top 5 South Africa - Australia player battles

#3 Dale Steyn and Michael Clarke

Action in the middle became more feisty whenever Dale Steyn and Michael Clarke went up against each other

When Australia toured South Africa in the aftermath of their bullish Ashes victory over England in 2013, they had purpose, intent and a fiery Mitchell Johnson. The confrontation between Clarke and Steyn began when Steyn defended his teammate Vernon Philander against James Pattinson, following the overturning of his dismissal on a decision review. Clarke then intervened and made a personal remark at Steyn that did not go down well with the pace bowler.

Two years earlier too, in 2011, Clarke, after an intense battle, eventually got on top of Steyn to make one of the finest hundreds of his career in the first innings in Cape Town.

However, that came only after Clarke survived a superb burst of pace bowling where Steyn shook up the Aussie skipper with a run of lethal short deliveries and a mid-pitch verbal spray.

Steyn had said the South Africans had made it their mission to go for the kill whenever Clarke strides to the crease.

But in 2013, when Clarke's personal remark made newspaper headlines, Steyn was pretty unhappy and made sure he let the press know that he was hurt by the comments.

"The issue got blown out completely, it was like two schoolgirls the way the media got hold of it. I felt like Clarkey had his opportunity to say something at the end of the Cape Town Test and obviously I wasn't in the press conference there and the next opportunity I got was a couple of months later in Zimbabwe [Zimbabwe Tri-Series, 2014] so I said what I felt.", Steyn said later.