Lungi Ngidi ruled out of the Australia ODIs as South Africa lose a third seamer

South Africa will meet Australia in next week's one-day series without Lungi Ngidi, who has been ruled out by a right hamstring injury picked up in the opening round of the domestic first-class season

Scans on Wednesday confirmed the damage and the need for a period of rehabilitation, and Cricket South Africa said on Friday that the seamer would play no part in the three matches, which begin in Durban on 24 September.

Dolphins quick Nqobani Mokoena, 20, has been called into the 16-player squad in his place, and was pulled out of a first-class match to join up.

Ngidi is the third frontline seamer South Africa have lost before a ball has been bowled, following Kagiso Rabada and Ottneil Baartman.

Injured in the season's opening round

Ngidi was playing in the first-class fixture between the Titans and the Dolphins, the first round of South Africa's four-day competition, when the hamstring went.

Scans two days later confirmed it and ended any hope of him being fit for the white-ball leg of the Australia tour.

Cricket South Africa has put no timeframe on his return beyond the rehabilitation period, and has not said how many weeks that is expected to run.

A pace attack picked apart

Rabada and Baartman were already unavailable through injury, so the loss of Ngidi removes the last of the three seamers South Africa would have expected to lead the attack at home.

That leaves Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Kwena Maphaka, Corbin Bosch and Duan Jansen as the pace options in the squad, with Keshav Maharaj and Bjorn Fortuin the specialist spinners.

Jansen is comfortably the most experienced of them, and the attack around him is young for a home series against Australia.

All three absentees are fast bowlers, which narrows the selectors to the seamers already named rather than a like-for-like replacement for a strike bowler.

Mokoena withdrawn from a first-class match

Mokoena was in the field for the Dolphins against Western Province when the call came, having bowled 19 overs on the opening day for 1 for 78.

He has been released from that match to join the national squad, with Bayanda Majola taking his place in the Dolphins side.

His international cricket so far amounts to two one-day internationals on the tour of Namibia, in which he took one wicket.

A first home series against Australia is a considerable step up from that, and he arrives in camp having already bowled a long spell this week.

A decision on the Tests comes later

South Africa play Australia in a three-match World Test Championship series that begins on 9 October, and Ngidi's availability for it will be assessed closer to the start.

The white-ball leg finishes in Potchefstroom on 30 September, which leaves nine days between the last one-day international and the first Test.

Those Tests carry championship points, so the selectors have reason to be cautious with a bowler working back from a hamstring rather than rush him into the one-day squad late.

The squad Bavuma takes to Durban

Temba Bavuma captains a 16-man squad that is otherwise unchanged, with Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Aiden Markram, Matthew Breetzke, Tony de Zorzi, David Miller and Tristan Stubbs the batting options.

Maharaj and Fortuin give Bavuma two left-arm spinners, and Marco Jansen and Bosch offer batting depth from the lower order.

The series moves from Durban to Johannesburg on 27 September before the finale in Potchefstroom three days later.

South Africa ODI squad: Temba Bavuma (c), Corbin Bosch, Matthew Breetzke, Gerald Coetzee, Quinton de Kock, Tony de Zorzi, Bjorn Fortuin, Duan Jansen, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kwena Maphaka, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Nqobani Mokoena, Ryan Rickelton, Tristan Stubbs.

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