The Australian cricket team has donated its $51,000 prize money for beating South Africa today to the Salvation Army's bushfire relief fund.

The Australian Cricket Board said it would match the $51,000, meaning a donation of $102,000 to help victims of the fires that have been burning around NSW for nearly two weeks.

After accepting the winner's cheque at the end of the third cricket Test against South Africa in Sydney, captain Steve Waugh said: "It's been a great couple of weeks for the Australian team.

"But while all this has been going on, the real heroes have been the firefighters saving lives and houses.

"The Australian cricket team would like to donate all our prizemoney to the bushfire relief fund."

Earlier this week, Waugh said the team had been prepared to play a benefit match, but that wasn't realistically possible given the crowded itinerary for the rest of the summer.

He said the whole team agreed on the idea of donating the prize money.

"We've been watching the news every night and quite a few of us have been affected by bushfires in the past.

"It's a small sacrifice from us, it's not a large amount of money, but we thought it was the right way to go."

Prizemoney is usually divided among team members, which means today's donation equates to about $4,000 for each of the 13 players who played in the series.

© 2002 AAP