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An easy victory over Zimbabwe was followed by a listless performance by the Australian bowlers against South Africa. The Aussies now take on Zimbabwe in a bid to seal their place in the final of this tri-series. Join The Roar for live scores and commentary from 5:30pm (AEST).
That Australia lost their previous game to South Africa was bad enough for a side aspiring to get back into the groove of things following a lengthy break from international cricket.
That they lost after scoring 327 batting first made it even worse.
Rubbing further salt into their wounds would be the fact their strategic blunder was exposed by Zimbabwe in the next game – their decision to not play a frontline spinner ended up being a huge mistake and one that was exploited to the fullest by the South African batsmen.
There are some decisions, that in hindsight, look foolish. There are others which were unanimously criticised even before they failed. And then there is that third category which were not only castigated before hand but also failed so miserably that there is a need to put one’s hand up and say they erred.
The Nathan Lyon dropping from the South African game falls in the third of the aforementioned categories and while there was no direct admitting of a mistake, the selectors have recalled him for this ODI. Mitchell Johnson has been rested.
The reasoning is simple. The track at Harare is becoming more and more difficult to bat on against slower bowlers and Zimbabwe’s Prosper Utseya showed against South Africa what can be done on it.
The offie grabbed a five-wicket haul against South Africa that also included a hat-trick – making him only the second Zimbabwean to achieve that feat in ODIs – and together with the other spinner, John Nyumbu, restricted the high-flying South Africans to just 231.
That Zimbabwe did not get to the target is another matter – they are a batting line-up struggling for form over the last few games – but it just went on to show what Australia missed when the South Africans were going great guns in their chase of 327.
What makes things more interesting is that Clarke’s return to the side will see Steven Smith being confined to the reserves, another decision that could be borne out of the necessity to experiment, but one that could lead to questions being asked.
With Kane Richardson in bit of a struggle for form, Ben Cutting has been afforded an opportunity but one of the bigger announcements came from the captain, Clarke, who commented that Mitchell Marsh could open the bowling in this game.
Zimbabwe haven’t won in a long time – they even lost to Afghanistan in a couple of ODIs recently – but they will take a lot of heart from their showing against South Africa. They could have easily restricted their opposition to 200 and tried to get a lot closer but poor batting let them down.
The presence of Vusi Sibanda will be a tempting one for the coach Stephen Mangongo, to try out but it has been difficult to predict his moves so far. The res of the team, however, should remain the same, given they did reasonably well against South Africa.
Of course, Zimbabwe will be desperate for a win and despite the lack of recent results, they have come close on a couple of occasions to upsetting some of the big guns recently. Australia will hope for a more than convincing performance against their hosts.
Join me for this 4th ODI between Australia and Zimbabwe on Sunday.
Follow the live score of this game from 5:30pm (AEST) and post your comments below.
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