[VIDEO] Australia vs South Africa: 4th ODI cricket highlights, live scores

Match recap

Australia have won by three wickets, and the series 3-1.

South Africa will be wondering what happened there. The one way to look at it for South Africa is that it’s happened before the World Cup and not in one of the knock-out games during that competition. And yet, whatever happened there? When Glenn Maxwell threw his wicket away, they were 5/98 in 24.1 overs chasing 268. That’s 170 required from the last 26 overs with four effective wickets in hand (Coulter-Nile may not have batted because of his injury). And they won it from there.

Steven Smith, take a bow. He has quickly moved up the pecking order of being one of the best batsman in the world and easily the most improved one in cricket these days. The selectors, probably, will turn around and say that it was all a part of the plan. Well, yep, whatever works.

Oh and did I say that Steven Smith is the man of the match again. Not that there was any doubt about that one.

We move to the fifth ODI of the series now at Sydney on Sunday where South Africa will need to pick up the pieces and display a lot more from their XI. AB de Villiers’ injury will be a concern, but even before that, the match referee will be looking at his over rate. He could well have fallen short there.

I will, unfortunately, not be around the final ODI but the action will continue here at The Roar. Bit of a break for me before I return for the India Tests from December 4. Have a good evening ahead!

Match preview

Australia will look to close out the series when they take on South Africa in the fourth game in Melbourne and you ​can ​follow the live blog of game from the Melbourne Cricket Ground starting at ​2:20pm (AEDT).​

For a team that batted rather brilliantly in the tri-series in Zimbabwe, South Africa’s performances with the bat in the first three ODIs of this series have been rather lacklustre.

There’s a sense that in the absence of Faf du Plessis scoring runs, there is a lot of dependence on AB de Villiers to rescue them out of trouble. JP Duminy’s pullout because of injury hasn’t helped matters in the middle-order which contains Rilee Rossouw and Frhaan Behardien, two greenhorns in the batting.

What that has translated into is a strain on the bowlers to ensure they can restrict Australia to below-par scores. Strangely, in two of the three games so far, the bowling hasn’t delivered as a unit either.

The lack of consistency has been a concern, and it was in display on Wednesday at Canberra when Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander, two of the best bowlers from the previous games, were smacked around for a few.

Of course, credit needs to be given to the Australian batsmen too.

Aaron Finch played a masterful innings, exhibiting that he is not all about raw power. And after being ably supported by most of those in the top-order, he handed the baton over to Steven Smith.

Smith proved to the Aussie selectors yet again why he needs to be one of the first to be pencilled into the ODI playing XI. His unorthodox half-century was the difference between a score of 290 and 329 and in the end, it resulted in his side winning the game and him scooping the man-of-the-match award.

Australia should not feel the need to change their winning combination. There were early question-marks over the bowling of Kane Richardson but he came back well in his later spells and he deserves to have another look-in.

The rest of the playing XI picks itself unless the selectors are in a real hurry to have a look at Pat Cummins in this format of the game.

On the other hand, the South African selectors will have some thinking to be done.

The Melbourne pitch can be expected to play quicker than the one at the Manuka Oval which should bring some of the venom back into Morkel and Philander’s bowling. However, the pressure on Imran Tahir, Behardien and the other part-timers to bowl 20 overs looks to be a tad too much currently.

South Africa could look to bring in someone like Wayne Parnell to give them some more balance, while they always have the option of going back to Ryan McLaren, who featured in the first ODI.

One way or the other, South Africa need to play a lot better than they have in the series so far to ensure the final ODI isn’t a dead rubber.

Join me for ​this fourth ODI between Australia ​and South Africa on Friday here and you can follow the live score of this game from ​2:20pm local time and post your comments ​in the section ​below.