Key events
3rd over: Australia 32-0 (Head 20, Marsh 10) Head goes onto his tippy-toes and punches another boundary. danger signs for South Africa as both openers look to be in fine fettle. Maphaka goes short and Head baseball swats back down the ground for four, following up with a rasping cut shot that clatters the hoardings. A play and a miss finishes another eventful over.
2nd over: Australia 20-0 (Head 8, Marsh 10) Wiaan Mulder to share the new white ball. Mitch Marsh is not messing about – the big fella cracks his first ball through cover and then pulls the fourth ball emphatically for SIX. Ten off the second over. Look a decent toss to have won for the home side.
1st over: Australia 10-0 (Head 8, Marsh 0) Head takes strike to Kwena Maphaka with Aussie captain Mitch Marsh stationed at the non-strikers. South Africa have two slips in place. Head opens his account with a clip off the pads that goes fine and Muthusamy dives over the ball in the field to gift four! Scrappy start from the visitors. Maphaka slings down a couple of wides before getting one straight that Head duly pings back past him for four more.
The players head out to the middle under true blue skies, let’s play!
The cheers could have been because of this! A change is as good as a rest?
Australia win the toss and choose to bat first
A few cheers around the ground as Mitch Marsh calls the coin toss correctly. I don’t think they were sarcastic but Australia fans would be forgiven for raising an eyebrow or two as the batting card has failed to fire in ODIs of late. Can they make 200 for the first time this series. We’ll soon find out.
Teams:
Australia: 1 Mitchell Marsh (c), 2 Travis Head, 3 Marnus Labuschagne, 4 Cameron Green, 5 Josh Inglis (wk), 6 Alex Carey, 7 Cooper Connolly, 8 Xavier Bartlett, 9 Sean Abbott, 10 Nathan Ellis, 10 Adam Zampa
South Africa: 1 Ryan Rickelton, 2 Aiden Markram, 3 Temba Bavuma (c), 4 Tony de Zorzi, 5 Tristan Stubbs, 6 Dewald Brevis, 7 Wiaan Mulder, 8 Corbin Bosch, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Senuran Muthusamy, 11 Kwena Maphaka
Changes afoot! Sean Abbott and Cooper Connolly are in for Australia with Hazlewood and Hardie ‘rested’. South Africa have allowed Matthew Breetzke, Nandre Burger and Lungi Ngidi to put their trotters up with Corbin Bosch and Kwena Maphaka coming in. Bavuma confirms he is rotating his men with that tour of England next up, he also admits he would have batted first on a decent looking track.
The coin will be flipped imminently in Mackay.
Get up to speed in the meantime:
Preamble
James Wallace
Hello and welcome to the third and final ODI between Australia and South Africa from the fantastically named Great Barrier Reef Arena in Mackay, Queensland.
Dead rubber? Pffft no such thing between these two sides. After sealing the series on Friday with a second thumping win the Proteas are aiming for a series whitewash whilst Australia will be desperate to reverse their anvil-strapped nose dive of seven defeats in their last eight ODIs.
South Africa head over to England after this series for more white ball action, they’ve been very impressive in the last few matches with Lungi Ngidi and Keshav Maharaj starring with the ball and Matthew Breetzke peppering the fence with the bat.
Play gets underway in a little over half an hour – at 2.30pm AEST and an eye-bag inducing 5.30am here in Blighty. I’ll bring news of the teams and toss very shortly. Do get in touch if you are tuning in. Let’s do this.
