Top 20 in 2020: The best Test bowling, No.3

We've already counted down the 20 best Test moments and 20 best Test batting performances so far this century, and now it’s the turn of the bowlers!

The same criteria applies; performances have to be from Test matches since 2000 on Australian soil, with extra weight given to those that have come in famous victories for a bowler's team.

Before you get into this countdown, make sure you take a look at our Top 20 batting and Top 20 moments from earlier this year.

Re-live the countdown in full: 20-18 | 17-15 | 14-12 | 11-9 | 8-6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1

3) Dale Steyn, 5-87 & 5-67

South Africa v Australia, Melbourne, 2008

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It reveals much about Dale Steyn's selflessness that the fondest memories he carries of his match-winning, history-making deeds in the 2008 Boxing Day Test are the joyful tears shed by senior teammates.

On the back of Steyn's 10 wickets and JP Duminy's memorable maiden century, South Africa seized their first Test series win in Australia after eight previously fruitless campaigns dating back almost one hundred years.

But more significantly, the Proteas outfit that Graeme Smith led to a 2-1 triumph was the first visiting team to win a series on Australia's turf since 1992-93, the summer that followed South Africa's return to Test cricket after two decades in isolation due to its race-based apartheid laws.

"I had a great game personally but I think one of the biggest highlights for me was being on the bus, heading back to the hotel after we had won because we had wrapped up the series," Steyn told cricket.com.au on his most recent tour to Australia.

"We had just gone two-nil up, and seeing (Jacques) Kallis, Bouch (Mark Boucher), Smithy, Neil McKenzie, how they were reacting … some of them were crying because they had been here so many times and been beaten so badly.

"To come to Australia and win was never easy, so to see them tick that off their list of achievements was pretty special."

What Steyn's humility prevents him from adding is a key reason that group succeeded where all other comers had failed over 15 preceding summers was they boasted the world's most potent fast bowler who lived up to his billing.

Even though South Africa had previously won but a solitary Test of the 12 they had contested in Australia after re-integration, they arrived in late 2008 with a quiet confidence born not only from the strength of their playing stocks, but the accepted reality their hosts were on the wane.

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Since whitewashing England in 2006-07, Australia had seen Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist disappear into retirement, while bowling spearhead Brett Lee was slowed by injury and skipper Ricky Ponting carried an inconsistent batting line-up.

By contrast, the Proteas had been undefeated in their nine preceding Test series, including a momentous 2-1 win in England earlier in 2008 despite Steyn being absent from the final two matches of that campaign with a broken thumb.

He played a support role to new-ball partner Makhaya Ntini and allrounder Kallis in the first Test at Perth, which South Africa won by six wickets as they reeled in an epic final-day target of 414.

Come the Boxing Day Test five days later, Steyn was ranked number two among Test bowlers (behind Sri Lanka spinner Muttiah Muralidaran) but boasted most wickets (64) for that calendar year ahead of India's Harbhajan Singh (63) and Australia's Mitchell Johnson (61).

Furthermore, his haul of 140 wickets from 28 Test appearances to that point had been bettered by only two post-war bowlers at the same stage of their storied careers - Pakistan's Waqar Younis (159) and England's Ian Botham (149).

However, it was Steyn's hitherto unseen batting prowess that would ultimately prove as valuable as his fast bowling in one of the Proteas' most famous wins.

Batting first, and led by Ponting's 37th Test century, Australia posted 394 despite Steyn knocking over Simon Katich and Michael Hussey in quick succession before scything through the tail to complete a five-wicket bag.

Peter Siddle and spinner Nathan Hauritz then laid waste to the Proteas' top-order as the visitors crashed to 7-184 before Steyn – whose Test batting average was 9.8 with a top score of 33no – joined Duminy in a game-changing 180-run ninth-wicket stand.

Steyn later admitted he allowed himself to dream of emulating Duminy and posting a first Test ton when he reached 76, at which point he started thinking "I’m four hits away from a hundred here", until Siddle rattled his stumps.

But the 65-run lead he enabled his team to take would prove vital in the outcome of the match, and the series.

Steyn then removed rival openers Katich and Matthew Hayden before Australia had erased the deficit, and the constant threat he posed with the ball ensured the home team was never comfortable on a slower-than-usual MCG pitch.

Ponting, who fell to Morne Morkel just one run shy of his second century of the match, later nominated Steyn (alongside Kallis, Pakistan's Wasim Akram and West Indian Curtly Ambrose) as one of his favourite international players.

"Steyn was delivering some superb outswingers at pace, demonstrating why so many people rated him the best fast bowler in the game," Ponting wrote in his autobiography At the Close of Play about the speedster's performance in that MCG Test.

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"He gets through the crease very quickly and hits the bat hard, and while he's not as consistently relentless as Curtly (Ambrose) was, he still has a real presence about him."

It was a rare loose delivery that yielded Steyn the crucial breakthrough in Australia's second innings, when Michael Clarke tried to muscle a short, wide offering through the covers but was caught low down by McKenzie with Australia only 80 runs ahead.

Steyn then worked over Andrew Symonds, who edged just short of second slip three balls later before falling to precisely the same ploy from the final ball of that decisive over, ensuring only Ponting stood between South Africa and history.

Fittingly, Steyn claimed the final Australia wicket (his 150th in Tests) which meant South Africa's target for a feat none of their fabled predecessors had been able to achieve was 183, which they duly reached midway through the final day for the loss of a single wicket.

Steyn was a member of the Proteas outfit that returned to Australia in 2012-13 and won the three-Test series 1-0, and would have completed a rare hat-trick of triumphs in 2016-17 had he not suffered a serious shoulder during the opening match in Perth.

While he revelled in plying his trade before appreciative (if partisan) full houses and on pitches that often encouraged fast bowlers, it was the challenge presented by ultra-competitive Australia players on their home patch that lifted him to exalted levels.

"When you’re up against a good Australian side and they’re giving everything, you can’t give half an inch," he told cricket.com.au a decade after that historic game.

"You have to give everything you’ve got, and that often pulls the best out of a lot of players."

Top 20 in 2020: Best Test bowling

20) James Pattinson v New Zealand, Brisbane, 2011

19) Glenn McGrath v England, Brisbane, 2006

18) Anil Kumble v Australia, Sydney, 2004

17) Mohammad Asif v Australia, Sydney, 2010

16) Peter Siddle v England, Brisbane, 2010

15) Rene Farrell v England, Sydney, 2011

14) Glenn McGrath v Pakistan, Perth, 2004

13) Jasprit Bumrah v Australia, Melbourne, 2018

12) Michael Clarke v India, Sydney, 2008

11) Mitchell Johnson v South Africa, Perth, 2008

10) Vernon Philander v Australia, Hobart, 2016

9) Glenn McGrath v West Indies, Brisbane, 2000

8) Mitchell Johnson v England, Perth, 2010

7) Doug Bracewell v Australia, Hobart, 2011

6) Ajit Agarkar v Australia, Adelaide, 2003

5) Mitchell Johnson v England, Brisbane, 2013

4) Shane Warne v England, Adelaide, 2006

3) Dale Steyn v Australia, Melbourne, 2008

2) Nathan Lyon v India, Adelaide, 2014

1) Mitchell Johnson v England, Adelaide, 2013