After almost three years in the wilderness, Fingleton returned to the Test arena in the First Test at Durban. After making two in the first innings, he was unbeaten on 36 when Australia reached their second innings target with nine wickets in hand. During the first innings, a 140 km/h gale hit the ground, uprooting trees and forcing balls that were heading into the wind to do U-turns. He followed this with 62—the innings top-score—and 40 in the Second Test at Johannesburg. After taking a 93-run first innings lead, Australia needed a Test record of 399 in the second innings to win on a turning wicket, and after the early demise of Brown, Fingleton joined McCabe in a 177-run partnership that pushed the score to 1/194. Such was the dominance of McCabe that he scored more than 80% of the runs during this partnership. Australia needed only 125 with half the day remaining and eight wickets in hand when poor visibility ended play. McCabe had flayed the attack and reached 189 not out when the South Africans had the match called off, claiming that the fieldsmen were endangered by the batsman's vigorous hitting.