Australia’s Long Road Back to South Africa: A High-Stakes Cricket Tour
It has taken eight years, a World Test Championship final and an era-defining scandal to get here. Now Australia are finally going back to South Africa.
In October 2026, Pat Cummins’ side will tour the home of the reigning ICC World Test Champions for three Test matches, a series loaded with history and needle. Before that, they’ll ease – if that’s even the word – into a seven-week odyssey with six ODIs split between South Africa and Zimbabwe, starting in Harare on September 15.
Nothing about this trip feels routine.
A rematch with the new kings
The Test leg will be the first time Australia and South Africa have met in whites since that 2025 ICC World Test Championship final in London, where South Africa claimed the mace with a five-wicket win. That result still stings in Australian dressing rooms and boardrooms alike.
Now the champions sit at home, waiting. Australia arrive as challengers, not top dogs, and they know it.
Three Tests in 22 days underline the intensity of what’s coming. No gentle build-up, no time to exhale. Just a compressed, high-pressure series between two sides with unfinished business.
Back to the scene of the scar
This is not just any return tour. It is Australia’s first Test series in South Africa since 2018 – the series that detonated into “sandpaper gate” and reshaped modern Australian cricket.
For the hosts, those images of Cape Town and the fallout that followed are part of a rivalry that has never really cooled. For the visitors, it is a chance, at long last, to write a different kind of story on South African soil.
Emotions will run hot. On the field, in the stands, and in every press conference.
The road runs through Harare and the ODIs
Before the red-ball drama, there is white-ball work to be done.
Australia open the tour with three ODIs against Zimbabwe in Harare from September 15, then shift to South Africa for another three ODIs. It’s a long, layered build-up: different conditions, different opponents, same expectation to win.
The ODI squad has a familiar backbone with a few intriguing threads:
- Xavier Bartlett
- Alex Carey
- Cooper Connolly
- Pat Cummins (South African matches only)
- Joel Davies
- Nathan Ellis
- Cameron Green
- Josh Hazlewood
- Travis Head
- Josh Inglis
- Spencer Johnson
- Mitch Marsh
- Oliver Peake
- Matthew Renshaw
- Billy Stanlake
- Mitchell Starc (South African matches only)
- Adam Zampa
There’s experience in Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood, Head and Marsh. There’s power and versatility in Green and Inglis. There’s pace in Bartlett, Johnson and Stanlake, and the control of Zampa to tie it together.
Cummins and Starc are held back for the South African leg, a clear nod to workload management and the premium placed on the contests against the world champions. Zimbabwe get a slightly different look, but not a second-string outfit. Australia know the pitfalls of taking any away tour lightly.
How to watch from Australia
For those at home, this tour lives behind the paywall.
There is no free-to-air coverage of the matches in Australia. Every ball of the ODIs against Zimbabwe and South Africa, and every session of the three-Test showdown, will be broadcast on Fox Cricket, with live streaming available via Kayo Sports.
No casual channel surfing. If you want to see how Australia handle their most emotionally charged away assignment in years, you’ll have to go looking for it.
Nine games, one question
Nine internationals, three countries, seven weeks. A white-ball tune-up, then a red-ball reckoning.
South Africa stand as world champions. Zimbabwe offer a stern opening examination. Australia arrive with scars, memories and a point to prove.
When this tour ends, we will know far more about where this Australian side truly sits: still haunted by 2018 and that London final, or finally ready to own South African soil again.
