Josh Inglis fractures a finger in Durban and faces a race to be fit for the Tests

Australia's first-choice white-ball wicketkeeper will fly home to Perth for scans on a broken right index finger, leaving his place in the Test squad for South Africa uncertain

Josh Inglis has been ruled out of the last two one-day internationals of Australia's tour of South Africa after fracturing his right index finger while keeping wicket in the opening match of the series in Durban on Thursday.

Cricket Australia said the 31-year-old would return home to Perth for medical scans, with his availability for the three-match Test series that follows "subject to further assessment and progress".

No replacement has been named for the one-day squad. Alex Carey will take the gloves for the remaining matches, in Johannesburg on Sunday and Potchefstroom on Wednesday.

Hurt behind the stumps, then out in the middle

Inglis broke the finger while keeping but saw out the rest of South Africa's innings, and then batted in his usual position at No.4.

He made 3 off 8 balls before being caught reverse-sweeping, one of six Australian wickets to fall to left-arm spin as the chase came apart.

Australia lost the match by 67 runs and trail 1-0 with two to play.

Carey's week turns again

Carey had lost his place as a specialist batter earlier in the week, when Cameron Green returned to the side for that defeat at Kingsmead.

The gloves come back to him by default, and Australia go to the Wanderers without the keeper who had only just settled a batting position.

Inglis made a match-winning 102 against Zimbabwe last week, his second one-day hundred, and appeared to have made No.4 his own.

"I've probably got to take some more responsibility batting at number four," he said in Harare after that innings. "We just play a lot of T20 cricket now and I think it's just me finding the right tempo for one-day cricket."

A Test place that was within reach

The greater cost may be the red-ball series. Inglis has played five Tests and is named in Australia's squad for South Africa as the back-up to Carey, but his likeliest route into the side was as a specialist batter rather than a keeper.

"I'll bat wherever they ask me to," he said last week, when asked whether he would take an unfamiliar place in the top three.

Australia will almost certainly need to add to the Test squad if the injury is severe enough to rule him out of a series that begins in a fortnight.

The first Test begins at Kingsmead on October 9, with the second at St George's Park in Gqeberha from October 18 and the third at Newlands from October 27.

A body that keeps interrupting him

Inglis has lost time to an unusual run of unrelated problems, among them a golf club that snapped in his hand and badly cut his palm.

He has battled back spasms more recently, and suffered multiple calf strains last year.

Who Australia would turn to

Josh Philippe is the obvious back-up gloveman, having kept for Australia A against India A this week after several strong seasons at that level. Sam Harper is also on the tour.

The batting candidates did little to press their claims in Puducherry, where Australia A lost by 162 runs, with only Jason Sangha and the fast bowler Fergus O'Neill passing 35.

There is precedent for a stand-in: Jimmy Peirson shadowed Carey for part of the 2023 Ashes, when Inglis returned home for the birth of his first child.

Nathan McSweeney, Sam Konstas, Campbell Kellaway and Peter Handscomb all batted in the top four in that match, and McSweeney's second-innings 35 was the highest score among them.

Australia will know more once the scans are read in Perth, with Sunday's second one-day international at the Wanderers the first of the matches Inglis misses.

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