South Africa will be without fast bowler Dale Steyn for Saturday’s one-off Twenty20 International against Australia in Carrara.

He has been released from the squad to play in the Cape Town Blitz’s opening round of Mzansi Super League fixtures.

He will likely miss Friday’s clash against the Tshwane Spartans at Newlands in Cape Town, but feature in Sunday’s outing versus the Durban Heat at Kingsmead in Durban.

Steyn has not been replaced in the South African squad, which is laden with other seamers Kagiso Rabada, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwaine Pretorious, Chris Morris and Lungi Ngidi.

Australia and South Africa have met 17 times in T20I cricket. The former has won on 11 occasions and the latter six.

Their last T20I outing was at Newlands in 2016, when Steyn proved relatively economical in defeat. His economy rate was 7.5, while the rest of the frontline bowlers conceded 9.5 or more.

Seamers Kyle Abbott and David Wiese were part of the bowling attack then, but have since signed Kolpak contracts.

Batsmen Steven Smith and David Warner starred in that victory, but are currently serving Cricket Ausralia-imposed bans for involvement in the ball-tampering saga that rocked the tour of South Africa and, indeed, world cricket, earlier this year.

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