South Africa takes on Zimbabwe in the Triangular Series cricket match on Thursday, September 4.
The match is scheduled to start at 9:30 a.m. CAT/SAST (5:30 p.m. AEST) at the Harare Sports Club.
The match will be broadcast on SuperSport in South Africa and Zimbabwe, and Fox Sports 2 in Australia.
It will also be broadcast on PTV Sports in Pakistan, Ten Sports in the Indian subcontinent, OSN in the Middle East, and Willow TV in the United States.
Live streaming will be available through most broadcasters.
South Africa will likely meet Australia in the final on September 6 because Zimbabwe would need to not only win this match but have a margin of victory that would be big enough to see their net run-rate jump very high.
Zimbabwe shocked the cricket world by beating Australia in its last match but Australia went on to beat South Africa, and Zimbabwe lost to South Africa (by 161 runs) and Australia (198 runs) previously in the series.
“It has been a tough three weeks of fifty-over cricket for Zimbabwe. They have toggled with various combinations, dealt with suspensions and injuries and have been trapped in a tunnel of defeat until the light came on on Sunday. That one match showed Zimbabwe’s promise and the value of regular game time. This could be their last international fixture until they tour Bangladesh in October so going out with a bang will be on their minds,” noted CricInfo.
“South Africa will have more immediate matters to take care of. Their plans were thrown slightly off track with the loss to Australia, so they can no longer use the final game for experimentation but rather for practice in must-win situations. Victory is not essential for them but it would significantly ease the passage into Saturday’s final, where they can test themselves in a pressure-cooker situation ahead of next year’s World Cup.”
South Africa will not be taking it easy in the match, coach Russell Domingo emphasized.
“It’s an important game, and a couple of the guys have been rested like Dale [Steyn] and Morne [Morkel], who have only played two games in the last three or four weeks, so I don’t think it’s that important for them to rest,” Domingo said.
“And I think they will be having a couple of weeks off after this tournament. AB [de Villiers] also had one or two games off, so I think we'll be pretty much as close to our strongest team tomorrow.”
South Africa will be without allrounder Ryan McLaren after he suffered a hairline fracture on his right forearm.
See the squads below.
South Africa
1 Hashim Amla, 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 AB de Villiers (capt), 5 JP Duminy, 6 David Miller, 7 Wayne Parnell, 8 Dale Steyn, 9 Morne Morkel, 10 Aaron Phangiso, 11 Imran Tahir
Zimbabwe
1 Sikandar Raza, 2 Tino Mawoyo, 3 Hamilton Masakadza, 4 Brendan Taylor (wk), 5 Sean Williams, 6 Malcolm Waller, 7 Elton Chigumbura (capt), 8 Prosper Utseya, 9 John Nyumbu, 10 Tendai Chatara, 11 Donald Tiripano
