South Africa will host Australia for a three-match T20 series starting from March 4. Both teams will be seeking winning momentum ahead of the ICC World T20 2016.
Australia have not played much of T20 cricket, and the little they did, they ended up on thre losing side, when they were whitewashed by India earlier this year.
Steve Smith and co. will look to leave that drubbing behind and look ahead to the South Africa tour.
Meanwhile, the Proteas have been in good form, especially, in the shortest format of the game. South Africa visited India for a marathon tour in 2015, in which they handed the Men in Blue a 2-0 defeat in the T20 series.
Recently, they played a two-match T20 series against England. The Proteas whitewashed Eoin Morgan and his team in that series.
It is clear that South Africa are a tough team to beat at home, and Australia captain Steve Smith should be wary of this fact.
"For us it's about playing some T20 cricket together, we haven't played a great deal of T20 over the last couple of years so it's a great opportunity for us to try and gel together as a unit before the World Cup," Smith was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo.
"Hopefully the South African curators can try and make the pitches a little bit slow and turning, I think that would benefit both sides, so we'll wait and see what they come up with."
"It's about moving forward and trying to get everything going in the right direction before the World Cup."
"We've got a few options for guys that can open the batting, there's about four guys vying for a spot there. The bowlers are working hard to get into the eleven but I think it will take a whole squad to win a World Cup."
This series will be the perfect platform for Australia to gain some momentum before they travel to India to take part in the ICC World T20, where they have been pitted against New Zealand, Pakistan, India and one more qualifying team in Group B of the tournament.
Complete Squads:
South Africa: Faf du Plessis (C), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock (wk), AB de Villiers, David Miller, JP Duminy, Farhan Behardien, Kyle Abbott, Dale Steyn, Kagiso Rabada, Imran Tahir, Rilee Rossouw, David Wiese, Chris Morris, Aaron Phangiso.
Australia: Steve Smith (C), Aaron Finch, David Warner, Shane Watson, Peter Nevill (wk), Mitchell Marsh, Andrew Tye, Josh Hazlewood, Ashton Agar, Glenn Maxwell, Adam Zampa, John Hastings, Usman Khawaja, James Faulkner, Nathan Coulter-Nile.
