Australia v South Africa: tri-series

 

5.39pm AEST

1st over: Australia 9-0 (Finch 1 Hughes 8)

A nice start for Hughes, as he pulls Steyn for four through midwicket, then edges one through a vacant slip. Steyn bowling to a 7-2 field had little protection for the short ball.

5.34pm AEST

So Michael Clarke is out of the side, of course, with injury - he’s been sent home to Australia, and Steve Smith is in. Kane Richardson is in for Ben Cutting, Mitchell Johnson is back for James Faulkner.
Australia
Finch
Hughes
Smith
Bailey*
Marsh
Maxwell
Haddin†
Johnson
Starc
Richardson
Lyon

South Africa
Amla
Kock†
du Plessis
de Villiers*
Miller
Duminy
McLaren
Steyn
Phangiso
Morkel
Tahir
5.27pm AEST

I’ll be with you through the entire first innings, and would of course like to hear your thoughts on the game, the commentary, or the state of the broader world. Email me through your comments at

It was some game. Had Zimbabwe taken their chance against South Africa a couple of days earlier they could well be in the final of this series. Their frustration at letting that chance slip seemed to influence how determined they were not to do the same against Australia. Prosper Utseya especially was not going to let another good bowling performance go to waste - he was fierce with the bat. That all means the Australians have to win this match in case Zim manage to upset SA when next they meet.

5.17pm AEST

Hello sporting fans, friends, and people who like watching Australia be embarrassed. No doubt a few of the latter group will be here after recent events in this series, hoping to see another Down Under disaster, but the canary yellow mob could just as well take their frustration out on their great modern rivals. Geoff Lemon with you as we find out which it will be.

4.27pm AEST

Preamble

Geoff will be here shortly to take you through the first session of the day but before he arrives, why not remind yourselves how things have gone so far on the tour of Zimbabwe. In a nutshell, not swimmingly.

• Game One: Australia make light work of Zimbabwe
• Game two: Australia chased down by South Africa
• Game three: Zimbabwe stun Australia as Clarke injury returns

Darren Lehmann was understandably fuming by the performance of his charges in that most recent defeat - Australia’s first ODI loss to Zimbabwe in 31 years – and the Australia coach was left searching a thesaurus for new ways to express his anger, which pretty much sums things up.

There’s probably not enough expletives in the English language at the moment for the way I’m feeling. It’s just embarrassing for everyone involved in the touring party, and I hope they’re hurting. They should be.