Last Updated on 10 years by Charbel Coorey

Half way through this tournament and the competition is poised in favour of Australia and South Africa, as expected. Australian captain Michael Clarke returns after injuring his hamstring before the tournament opener. Australia will look to bounce back after a defeat to South Africa in a high scoring game, while Zimbabwe will look to build on their improved showing last match against the South Africans despite being bowled out for their 2nd score of below 200 in as many games.

Australia have finally understood that spin and pace off the ball will give you the best chance of restricting the scoring in what has been a tournament underlined by free-flowing scoring until South Africa collapsed from 0/142 against Zimbabwe. In that match, Prosper Utseya and John Nyumbu caused the damage, taking 8 wickets between them and ripping through the Proteas’ lineup. This means that Nathan Lyon will play and will have an important role when coming on to bowl.

For Zimbabwe, they would want to improve their batting as their batsmen let a glorious chance slip against South Africa. Looking at their target of 232, you would have given them a chance considering they had all the momentum following South Africa’s collapse. I certainly gave them a chance and despite declaring they were going to be more competitive than they were in their 1st match against the Aussies, I expected better from their players including Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor. For Australia, they’ll know how vulnerable their opponents are and will look to be as ruthless as possible in an attempt to get back to winning ways.

Zimbabwe’s batting must improve and this means their best batsman, Brendan Taylor, needs to get back into the runs. Dropped for the 3rd ODI against South Africa in the ODI series preceding this triangular tournament, he is yet to prove the selectors wrong, scoring 10 and 0 so far. He has plenty of class about him and needs to step up.

For Australia, it will be interesting to see how fit Michael Clarke is. He will certainly be itching to get a good score under his belt and hit form as the business end of the competition looms. Zimbabwe will look to spin as a means of taking wickets and restricting the Aussies, playing right into Clarke’s hands as we all know how good he is when playing spin bowling.

Prediction: Zimbabwe at home is never an easy proposition as results over the last few years indicating, but predicting a solid Australian win as they possess more quality and will look to bounce back from a last start defeat.