Mumbai: The young bowling attack of Australia will be put to test against South Africa for five one-day international which begins from Friday at Centurion.
The No. 1 world ODI team will be operating without their top class bowling firepower when they will take on their world No. 4 challengers. Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood have been rested, while Nathan Coulter-Nile, James Pattinson, Pat Cummins, James Faulkner and Peter Siddle were ruled out by injury.
The visiting squad of Australia will consist of three pacers which include Daniel Worrall, who earned his first cap in Australia’s nine-wicket win against Ireland in Benoni on Tuesday, Chris Tremain and Joe Mennie.
John Hastings, Scott Boland and all-rounder Mitchell Marsh are the only experienced pacers in the team who all together have picked 80 wickets in 73 caps in ODIs.
Australia will be heavily banking on Adam Zampa’s leggie turns. Adam Zampa, 24 has been a successful spinner for Australia who has taken 25 wickets in 13 matches but South Africa’s relatively small grounds and the thin air in Centurion and Johannesburg could challenge his skills.
Aussie coach Darren Lehmann on arrival in Johannesburg said it is necessary to rotate the squad’s bowling resources with a view for building depth ahead of major Test series and one-day tournaments. He said all 14 members of the squad would get game time during the tour.
Given their lack of experience, the Australian bowlers should feel lucky that AB de Villiers, the world’s number one-ranked one-day international batsman, will be undergoing elbow surgery that will keep him out of both the one-day series and a Test series in Australia in November.
South Africa will, however, back with a strong batting line-up, led by Quinton Kock, Hashim Amla and stand-in captain Faf du Plessis.
The South African team however has declared unusually large team of 16 players and they too intend to shuffle up their resources not only to provide opportunities to all their players but also to comply with Cricket South Africa’s recently adopted racial ‘targets’ which calls for a season’s average of six players of colour, including at least two black African players in the national team.
There are nine players of colour in the squad, including three black Africans — fast bowler Kagiso Rabada, left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso and all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo, who won his first cap in South Africa’s 206-run win over Ireland last Sunday. The targets will make managing the workload of Rabada, 21, a particular challenge.
Rabada, named South Africa’s cricketer of the year in July, has played in 34 of South Africa’s 38 matches across all formats in the past year and there will be concerns about the risk of burn-out in a rare fast bowling talents.