South Africa and Australia will lock horns in the first T20 of the three-match series at the Kingsmead in Durban, Friday.
The Proteas may not have produced pleasing results in Tests of late, but they have done exceedingly well in the shorter formats of the game.
Faf du Plessis & co. will take on Australia, who are looking to get back to winning ways in T20 cricket ahead of the ICC World T20, which starts from March 8 in India.
Click here for the complete schedule.
South Africa and Australia are not part of the same group of the ICC World T20 2016, which means they will not meet until, at least, the semifinals.
But a T20 series just ahead of the World T20 will be good practice for players from both sides. Most of them will look to find their best form before they fly to India to participate in the ICC World T20.
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Australia have played only eight T20 games since the last ICC World T20 2014, which was held in Bangladesh. Recently, they were thrashed by India at home and they will look to forget that and move on.
Click here for the 1st T20 schedule.
Steve Smith, who replaced Aaron Finch as the captain of the Australian T20 side earlier this year, will look to find his best combination for the World T20.
"We want to win every series that we play, hopefully some guys get some runs and take some wickets and we'll put on a good fielding display before the World T20 in a week's time," Smith was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo.
Meanwhile, Du Plessis feels that his side is devoid of any weakness and ready to take on Australia.
"It looks like we're ticking all the boxes as a team. There's no area in our team where I feel it's a weakness. I feel every gap has been plugged and that's very nice to have," Du Plessis said.
When asked about the opening combination, Du Plessis said that they will try all possible combinations ahead of the ICC World T20.
"We are looking to give everyone in the squad a go in this series to try all the combinations of Quinny (Quinton de Kock) and AB [De Villiers) or Hash (Hashim Amla) and AB. Obviously both of them have done really well and are in good form," Du Plessis added.
"It's great that we can have more depth in our squad going to the World Cup. I don't see it as a problem. The more options, as a captain, the better."
Expected XI: South Africa: Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis (C), AB de Villiers (wk), Rilee Rossouw, David Miler, JP Duminy, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada, David Wiese, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir.
Australia: Usman Khawaja, Shane Watson, Steven Smith (C), David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, James Faulkner, Mitchell Marsh, Peter Nevill (wk), John Hastings, Josh Hazelwood, Ashton Agar.
Where to watch live:
The 1st T20 of the three-match series between South Africa and Australia is scheduled for a 6 p.m. local time (4 p.m. GMT and 9:30 p.m. IST) start with live coverage in India on Ten Cricket and Ten HD. The live streaming option will be available on Tensports.com.
Viewers in South Africa can watch South Africa vs Australia 1st T20 live on SuperSport 2 and CSN. The live stream option is on SuperSport Live.
Australia viewers can catch the live action of South Africa vs Australia 1st T20 on Fox Sports 1. Foxtel Play will provide the live streaming of the match. Cricket Australia official website will live stream the T20 series worldwide.
Audience in UK can watch South Africa vs Australia T20 series on Sky Sports 3 and Sky Sports HD 3. Live Streaming option will be available on SkyGo.
Viewers in US can watch the South Africa vs Australia T20 series on Willow TV. The games can also be live-streamed on Willow TV online.
