Analysis: The lesser lights leading Australia’s white ball hopes

His mistake? Well aside from patchy performances, a mild hamstring injury that ruled him out of the third Test at Headingley opened the door for Mitch Marsh to make the all-rounder’s spot his own with a commanding ton at Leeds supplemented by a handful of other useful contributions.

The lesson here is that by letting someone else do your job, even for a week, you run the risk of them doing it better than you.

The same phenomenon may be playing out in Durban this week in a considerably more off-Broadway series being played in the middle of the Australian night and being swamped by the conclusions to the footy seasons and even the basketball World Cup.

For reasons largely to do with injury and workload, Australia is without its biggest names for this three-match Twenty20 international series against South Africa. There’s no Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, David Warner, Steve Smith, Glenn Maxwell or Green, while Adam Zampa missed game one of the series through illness.

And only some of that group will be back for the one-day international series starting next week.

The only way to truly know if you have depth is to test it, and across the first couple of matches of the series, the understudies have as a collective passed with flying colours.

While Tanveer Sangha, brought into the XI for game one on late notice, was the star on Wednesday night, he was rotated out of the second rubber. And yet Australia still secured a crushing series victory with a match to spare. But the telling factor was that it was done on the back of key performances from a quartet of whom none was in the squad for last year’s flop of a T20 World Cup defence on home soil.

For years there has been a debate in Australian cricket about picking the three main Test quicks – Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc – in the T20 side ahead of white-ball specialists.

In 2021 the move to back in star power succeeded, with Hazlewood in particular playing a major role in Australia ending its T20 World Cup drought.

But when the Aussies looked to go back-to-back a year later, the formula looked staid and predictable. It had been understandable to go back to the well with the winning side, but different names needed to be exposed ahead of the 2024 tournament.

On Friday night at Kinsgmead, that idea was underscored as Sean Abbott, Nathan Ellis and Jason Behrendorff led an overhauled seam battery that combined for eight Protea wickets and all went at under 6.3 runs an over.

Ellis’ variations in particular were executed brilliantly. He got Dewald Brevis with swing and Gerald Coetzee with a slower ball to finish with 3-25, shaded by Abbott’s 3-22. Ellis is a highly sought-after player on the white-ball franchise circuit, and this was a reminder of why that is the case.

While Behrendorff’s body means he is only ever likely to be a T20 consideration from this point, Abbott and Ellis are both pushing for spots in the final squad for Australia’s one-day World Cup campaign next month. From the outside it appears they are probably battling for one spot, and if they continue this form into the ODIs against South Africa then someone is going to be extremely unlucky.

That’s before even mentioning that Australia’s most successful quick from game one – Marcus Stoinis – didn’t even bowl in the second match, with the Aussie camp keen to explore what they’ve got at their disposal.

The freshest face to fire on Friday was Matt Short, who clubbed Coetzee and Lungi Ngidi to make 66 off 30. Warner has said he wants to make it to the T20 World Cup next year, but if a fill-in is going to play like this, then selectors will have some tough calls to make on the batting front too.

Marsh is the recent poster boy for taking your chance when it comes, a point he reinforced in thrashing an unbeaten 79 from 39 in the run chase. From looking like his Test career was over, he’s now a three-format player who by month’s end will have captained his country in two of them.

His tale will inspire his team of lesser lights to dream of what is possible, and perhaps make those absent a touch nervous about their spots.