Collapse in Centurion

What a difference a few days make. On Friday in Durban, South Africa collapsed something awful, routed by 141 runs with Nathan Hauritz taking 4 wickets (what happened to Jason Krezja? I thought he looked quite promising!).

Fast forward to Sunday at SuperSport Park, and the signs weren't good. Australia winning the toss on a superb batting track, full of confidence off the back of their big win where Michael Hussey had finally got in gear. It was seemingly all set for a high-scoring game.

Only it didn't work out like that. In a display that can only be summarised as woefully un-Australian, the Ocker top order completely folded, surrendering to some masterful pace bowling by Dale Steyn and the precocious 19-year-old left-armer Wayne Parnell. Brad Haddin played on in the first over, Michael Clarke continued his awful run of form that has seen many Aussie fans call for him to be dropped, and Ricky Ponting, after getting off the mark first ball with a pull shot for six, edged behind off the former U19 skipper Parnell.

Things got worse. David Hussey, who might score lots of runs in county cricket but is plainly not up to it at this level, played an awful thrash to give his wicket away (when he's not running his partners out, as he did at Kingsmead). His older brother was completely flummoxed by a Parnell slower ball. In truth, only Callum Ferguson (a patient 50) and Mitchell Johnson provided any resistance as they limped to 131 all out. On a pitch that good, it was criminal and South Africa showed how easy it was to score on this pitch by knocking the runs off at 5-an-over.

While Australia shone in the test series and are probably still good value for their number 1 spot in the five-day format, they are proving themselves to be less than coherent in the 50-over game (although not nearly as deficient as England, steady on). South Africa appear simply more dynamic, with more bowling options and batting further down as well. After so many retirements of star players, a bit of a transitional period is to be expected by Cricket Australia will be worried by successive ODI series delivering problems as looks to be the case here.