South Africa beat Australia

After Australia lost the test series in cricket to South Africa, the Proteas have also beaten their hosts in the one-day format of the game. South Africa won the one-day cricket series 3-1 with one last game to be played.


South African cricketer Dale Steyn appeals for a caught behind. Photo: Sebastian Costanzo

It's a repeat of the test series, where South Africa needed to win the final test match to become the No. 1 test team in the world. Here again if they win the final one-dayer in Perth the South Africans would become the No. 1 one-day team. The Aussies prevented them from winning the coveted test title, even though the Proteas had won the series, by snatching victory in the last test.

Now they look to repeat that feat, again even after losing the series, to save face. There are other reasons for each team to look for victory in this dead rubber. "We want to play good cricket, we want to come out here and play our traditional positive, aggressive cricket and hopefully take some momentum from this last one-dayer into the New Zealand series," says Australian captain Michael Clarke.

"We don't want to give the Australians any breathing space. We've got them down 3-1 at the moment and we want to make sure that's 4-1. We want to give them absolutely nothing to bring to South Africa," said South Africa's bowling coach Vinnie Barnes.