Australia might finally have given South African skipper Graeme Smith the lucky break he is craving by resting speedster Brett Lee from Friday's tri-series one-day cricket match at Telstra Dome.
Lee has been in sparkling touch this summer with the ball and is his country's leading wicket-taker this series, with 10 scalps at 23, but is the latest star to be rested this summer, and will sit out Australia's penultimate pool game to freshen for the finals.
Captain Ricky Ponting, who returns from a break himself, said the selectors were mindful of spelling Lee before the coming tour of South Africa given his workload in the eight months since the start of the Ashes tour, and his value to the side.
"He's been up for a long time and doing what he does he probably has more stress and physical burn out than anybody else in the side, so we felt now was an ideal time to give him a rest," Ponting said.
"You'd like to have Brett in your side all the time, but we've got to try to manage the side as well as we can and manage him as well as we can.
"He's been a great weapon for us in both forms of the game over the last 12 months and we've just got to be a little bit careful with him and make sure we are managing him well, and this is another part of that."
Resting Lee will give Australia's selectors another look at West Australian Brett Dorey, who bowled only four overs in his last match for his country, and is one of a clutch of players vying for a spot in the squad for the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.
Left-armer Nathan Bracken will also be rested, and Ponting said the policy - which has received its share of critics this year through the rests granted to Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist and the captain - allowed the selectors to manage player workloads while planning for the future.
"There's one eye on looking a bit further ahead, but we still feel that we're putting a very good team on the park that's obviously capable of winning this game," he said.
Lee might yet play in Sunday's match against the Proteas, at the SCG, but will definitely return for the finals, when Australia will field its best side.
Smith has become a fully-fledged member of the cursed captain club this summer, and was one of Lee's five victims the last time the sides played, at Telstra Dome a fortnight ago.
South African coach Mickey Arthur greeted Lee's omission as "good news" and could hardly wait to tell some of his top order batsmen, who have struggled against the New South Welshman's pace and swing this summer.
"I suppose it does release the shackles slightly, I think there might be one or two happier batters out there when I tell them the news," Arthur said.
Australia is counting on McGrath, Dorey and Stuart Clark to keep South Africa's skipper under pressure that is comparable to the other jobs the bowlers have done on opposition skippers in recent seasons.
"He's (Smith's) a very good player in both forms of the game, he averages over 50 (51.54) in Test cricket and in one-day cricket it's around 40 (39.38), so statistically he's a very good player and our players have bowled very well to him," Ponting said.
"Brett in particular has bowled very, very well to him.
"Our plans that we've had set for him have worked very well and we've got a few more opportunities now to keep him under pressure and when we get back over there it would be nice to have him under pressure in South Africa as well, in front of his home crowd."
The Telstra Dome roof will be closed for all of Friday's match, and both sides were unfazed by a few damp surface patches at training on Thursday.