Marco Jansen played a starring role to help South Africa secure a series-winning victory by 122 runs in the fifth and final one-day international at the Wanderers Stadium on Sunday.
South Africa was 315 for nine when Australia was bowled out for 193. Jansen got five wickets for 39 runs.
South Africa’s captain, Temba Bavuma, said that despite losing the first two games of the series, the team’s character shone through, which was a good sign for the World Cup in India next month.
“There is a lot of confidence we can take, in that we had our backs against the wall and we showed we have ways of getting on top of the game. We will go to India in probably the best state we can be.”
After Australian captain Mitchell Marsh put South Africa in to bat, they won each of the last three games by more than 100 runs.
Marsh admitted: “We were outplayed in the last three games but we have a one-day game in India on Friday, a lot of players coming back and a big World Cup coming up.”
Several top players, including regular captain Pat Cummins, fast bowler Mitchell Starc, all-rounder Glenn Maxwell, and star batsman Steve Smith, will join the team for a pre-World Cup series against India that starts on Friday in Mohali.
Marsh’s decision to bowl first in the only day game of the series made sense on Sunday, when his bowlers brought South Africa down to 103 for four in the 24th over on a pitch that gave movement and bounce to seamers.
Aiden Markram (93) and David Miller (63), who was named player of the series, put up 109 runs for the fifth wicket, and later batsmen Jansen and Andile Phehlukwayo used some big hits to push the total over 300.
Jansen scored 47 runs off of 29 balls with three sixes, and Phehlukwayo scored 39 runs off of 19 balls without being out.
Marsh and David Warner scored 34 runs in the first three overs of Australia’s innings, but then Jansen came on and got rid of Warner and Inglis in a single over.
Marsh (71) and Marnus Labuschagne (44 runs) put up 90 runs for the third wicket, but Jansen got rid of both of them and Alex Carey in just seven balls to put South Africa in charge.
Photo by Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
