Australia has been forced to battle hard for its place in the grand finals of the Indoor Cricket World Cup, with women's sides bouncing back with strong preliminary final wins in Brisbane on Friday night after suffering shock semi final losses in the morning session.
The Australian women had a comfortable 103-run win over New Zealand in the preliminary final and will clash with rivals South Africa at 12pm in a rematch of the 2007 World Cup grand final and this year's major semi final.
The Australian women tasted defeat for the first time since 2007 when they went down by six runs to a committed and tight-knit South African side that captain Hanri Strydom likened to a family.
"With our youngsters and our senior players, we're like a small family, and as a family we won that game today," Strydom said after top-scoring with 20.
"We are proud of ourselves, this was one of our main goals from the start of the tournament, end second, take this semi and then have the rest of the day off."
The hosts then made an emphatic statement, with Wendy Kemp's quarter-century the highlight of their merciless 103-run demolition of New Zealand.
Kemp also snared figures of 3-0 before sustaining a calf injury and she was later joined on the sidelines by Neisha Iles (eye) but captain Jude Coleman was optimistic both would be fit for tomorrow's decider.
Coleman was confident her side could turn it around after a poor showing against South Africa.
"I don't think we could have played much worse, batting-wise we made a lot of errors with calling and shot selection, and then our bowling was just too short and wide," Coleman said.
"We couldn't do many more things wrong and I think they played extremely well, so hopefully tomorrow it will be the other way round.
"We didn't really want to be playing tonight, so to come out and beat the Kiwis like we did - we're all very happy."
Australia is still in line to retain every trophy on offer, with the 19 & Under Girls sides all playing their respective grand finals at 9.30am.
