Warner's De Kock fight provoked by alleged barb about his wife

Lyon accepted the level one charge and rang de Villiers on Sunday night to apologise.

It emerged on Monday morning here that Warner's rage in the stairwell had been provoked by de Kock allegedly making barbs about his former ironwoman wife as the players walked towards the dressing rooms here on Sunday afternoon.

Warner's wife and his two young children are on tour with him in South Africa.

It was unclear what Warner, who also exchanged words with Faf du Plessis when South Africa's captain emerged from the dressing room, had said back to de Kock in the fiery exchange.

A Cricket Australia spokesperson said on Monday: "Following the end of the second session there was an incident involving David Warner and Quentin de Kock on return to the changerooms.

"The incident was discussed between the two team managers and the match referee (Jeff Crowe) last night and it is now in the hands of the on field umpires and the match referee.

"Both teams were reminded by the match referee of the spirit in which the game should be played."

Australian players travelled to the ground from their hotel in the city's north on Monday morning needing one more wicket to take a 1-0 series lead.

However, the result was relegated to the background by the 31-year-old's run-in with de Kock.
In the nearly five years since the notorious incident at the Walkabout bar in Birmingham with England's Joe Root he has increasingly been a more mild-mannered figure and assumed seniority in the Australian set-up as Smith's deputy as well as a fill-in leader of the national Twenty20 side.

However, Warner has now been thrust back into the limelight for the wrong reasons.

The blow-up with de Kock came during a tense fourth day of the match in which Warner had delivered an emotion-charged spray towards South African's Aiden Markram when the opener played a part in the run out of the Proteas' top batsman de Villiers awithout scoring.

Mitchell Starc also clashed verbally with Markram and all-rounder Theunis de Bruyn that afternoon.

Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith, who is commentating in the series, said Warner was not without blame.

"Warner crossed many personal boundaries with the South Africans, so we can’t be surprised when there is eventually a reaction," Smith tweeted. "If players are happy to give it, they have to be prepared to take it too."

Australian great Adam Gilchrist on Monday also weighed into the controversy.

"I think with Davey...there is no one denying his capabilities with the bat in hand. It's funny...he came into cricket and had his natural aggression mindset both with bat in hand and in the field," Gilchrist told radio station SEN.

"He used to pride himself being the guy that got into the verbal stoushes and was a leader of the aggressive mindset.

“But he then went the other way and he was very, very outright in saying ‘I’ve put that away, that’s not me any more’.

“It was really extreme the opposite way, and now he’s come back again saying ‘old Davey’s back’ and all his teammates are saying ‘the Reverend’s gone, Bull’s back’.

“It’s always a worry in any situation when someone is so extreme on one direction or the other. I think Davey’s got to find somewhere in between that.

“He does pride himself in being a leader of the team, he did that very well in the T20s as captain but what we’ve seen in the last 24 hours probably isn’t the images that you want your captain projecting.”

Gilchrist said he could thank his teammates for not letting things get further out of hand.

"If they were not there and he goes on the path that he was intending, who knows what would have happened," he said.

"Watching that, once the emotion and the aggression is taken away from it David has to be a little bit disappointed that he ‘s done that and allowed this whole discussion to start up.”