After three warm-up matches, with one win, one draw and one loss, the South African team was ready for the top-ranked Australians, though they had to make do without Jacques Kallis. After the early wicket of Matthew Hayden who mis-timed a shot to Jacques Rudolph in the gully on his second ball, Australia batted to lunch with no further loss, and having added 96 in the first 26 overs before lunch they continued with 15 in four overs after it – before Justin Langer top edged a shot to Graeme Smith, and Makhaya Ntini had his second wicket.