After two years of hopelessly one-sided affairs, the annual Australian one-day extravaganza is set to provide a decent contest at last. Australia have won their last 19 home triangular series matches, and the last time they were inconvenienced by a third final was in 1997-98 - when South Africa and New Zealand last took part in this tournament.

West Indies and Zimbabwe were dismissed with embarrassing ease last year, and Pakistan and India didn't put up much of a fight the year before. But this time it should be different: three of the four semi-finalists from the last World Cup are contesting this VB series, and the Australian Cricket Board will be hoping to get a triangular tournament in nature as well as name.

South Africa have a superior head-to-head record against Australia (22 wins to 21) and New Zealand beat the Aussies convincingly in two of the last three World Cups, so everything points to a tight tournament. Doesn't it?

Not if you look closer. South Africa are struggling badly after being trounced in the recent Test series, and for all the plaudits New Zealand earned in drawing 0-0 with the Aussies last year, they are in the midst of a very poor run in one-day cricket and lie eighth in the Wisden one-day table. Both were beaten by Australia A in warm-up matches. Added to that, Australia have lost only 10 of their last 59 matches. And one-day cricket is supposed to be a lottery.

South Africa are a battle-hardened one-day outfit, and have won 24 of their last 28 matches, but they were a battle-hardened Test outfit when they arrived in Australia six weeks ago. Just as Australia reopened old English wounds in last summer's NatWest series, they have a real chance to make South African wounds gape before the sides meet again in the return Test series.

Whether they like it or not, South Africa's one-day history against Australia reads like a choker's resume: In their last two tri-series in Australia, South Africa beat the hosts in the first final (in 1997-98 they'd given the Aussies a chasing in all four group games as well), only to lose the last two and with it the tournament. Then there was the one they didn't lose: the tie at Edgbaston in the 1999 World Cup. The Australian slip cordon, and it is a cordon these days, even in one-day matches, will ensure that messrs Gibbs and Donald won't want for reminders of past indiscretions.

South Africa will at least be perked up by the effervescence of Jonty Rhodes and the nous of Steve Elworthy. What they really need, though, is for Lance Klusener to rediscover the virility that has made him such a devastating proposition in recent times. He looked a broken man in the recent Test series.

Australia's only problems are nice ones: how to fit Matthew Hayden, Mark Waugh and Adam Gilchrist into two, and which of their squad to rotate as they continue their variant on the Total Football approach of the Dutch side of the 1970s.

For the first match of the tournament, against New Zealand at the MCG on Friday, they will give a debut to Western Australian quick bowler Brad Williams, and have left out Andrew Symonds, Andy Bichel and Hayden, the man who last week Steve Waugh said was batting as well as anyone ever has bar Bradman. This really is squad rotation in its purest form.

Such a policy means that even Michael Bevan will be left out from time to time. Bevan has been the world's best one-day batsman for years but he has a new problem to contend with now: bowlers are allowed to bowl one ball per over between a batsman's shoulder and head, and with Bevan's Test career having been wrecked by a fallibility against the short ball, it's a fair bet that Allan Donald - whose inability to control a white ball is such that he has only taken the new ball in a one-dayer four times in the last five years - will be waiting to test Bevan's technique.

Oh, and there's the ever-understated New Zealanders, who have a few big guns of their own. They won the ICC KnockOut Trophy a couple of years ago, when in the final they beat India who beat Australia and South Africa. In Chris Cairns they have one of cricket's cleanest hitters; in Craig McMillan one of the meatiest, and in Chris Harris the definitive bits-and-pieces pyjama performer. But they will miss Nathan Astle, who with 11 one-day hundreds has seven more than any other New Zealander. He broke a bone in his hand in the recent Test series against Bangladesh, but may be fit to join the squad for the final three group games.

The bar has certainly been raised after Australia's pointless mismatch against West Indies and Zimbabwe in this tournament last year, but for all the qualities of their opponents, it would be a surprise if anyone but the hosts were cracking open a few celebratory cold ones at the end of the inaugural Victoria Bitter tournament.

Squads

Australia: Mark Waugh, Adam Gilchrist (wk), Ricky Ponting, Michael Bevan, Steve Waugh (capt), Damien Martyn, Ian Harvey, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Brad Williams, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Andrew Symonds, Andy Bichel.

South Africa: Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Neil McKenzie, Jonty Rhodes, Mark Boucher (wk), Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock (capt), Justin Kemp, Nicky Boje, Allan Donald, Boeta Dippenaar, Justin Ontong, Charl Langeveldt, Makhaya Ntini.

New Zealand: Mark Richardson, Lou Vincent, Stephen Fleming (capt), Craig McMillan, Chris Cairns, Chris Harris, Adam Parore (wk), Dion Nash, Scott Styris, Daniel Vettori, Shane Bond, James Franklin, Andre Adams, Brendon McCullum.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com.

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