Australians eye World Cup positions

If February 14 seems a long way off, you're clearly not an Australian selector. That is the date that Australia begin their World Cup campaign against England at the MCG and opportunities to assess players ahead of the tournament are fast running out; World Cup squads must be finalised before the time the tri-series with India and England starts on January 16.

That means the five-match ODI series against South Africa that begins in Perth on Friday will be the last audition chance for Australia's fringe players. The batting line-up seems largely settled with David Warner, Aaron Finch, Shane Watson, Michael Clarke, George Bailey, Glenn Maxwell and Steven Smith all part of the squad to play South Africa, and all likely to feature at the World Cup.

There is no shortage of batting backup either, with Phillip Hughes and Cameron White both capable of stepping straight into the side if called up, although neither are in the squad for the first two ODIs. Matthew Wade is expected to keep wicket through the South African series while Brad Haddin recovers from his shoulder injury sustained against Pakistan, but Haddin will be the gloveman at the World Cup.

But the bowling group is not quite as clear-cut. World Cup probables James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc were left out of the first two ODIs to allow them some Sheffield Shield time ahead of the Tests against India. There is also no Nathan Lyon, given the first two games are at the WACA. But for men like Nathan Coulter-Nile, Josh Hazlewood and Kane Richardson, this is a big chance to press a World Cup case.

"I wouldn't like to be a selector at the moment, looking at our group and we've got a lot of guys around the country playing some good cricket," vice-captain Bailey said. "There's this group itself playing good cricket. It's going to be hard to nut that out. The players are going to have the performances that they themselves need to put on the board in the back of their minds as well as actually playing really well as a team."

Not only are individual performances important over the five-match series, but so is Australia's team form given they lost the recent tri-series final to South Africa in Zimbabwe. By the end of this month they will have played 16 matches against South Africa across all formats in 2014 and the Australians hope that another series against the world's No.2-ranked ODI side - Australia are No.3 - will be ideal World Cup preparation.

"There's every chance that they'll be featuring at the back end of the World Cup, so this will be a really good starting point to find out exactly where we are as a team," Bailey said. "I think we are two of the stronger teams going around. We're two teams very much gunning to try and win a World Cup in a couple of months ... There's a lot of bragging rights on the line and the cricket played will reflect that."

It will also provide Clarke the chance to move on from the disappointing tour of the UAE, where his men were humiliated in both Tests against Pakistan, which led to some criticism of Clarke's captaincy and form. Bailey said he expected Clarke to bounce back strongly back on home soil.

"If you look at his record it speaks for itself," Bailey said. "It's obviously a position people care a lot about. The Australian cricket team means a lot to a lot of people, so that's a great thing for cricket. But I'll back Pup to the hilt in terms of his performance and what he's done.

"If you look at his record as a player, he responds pretty well to pressure and generally goes out and does the one thing, and that's score big runs. The hard thing to look at is just how different the conditions were they've just come from. I'm backing him to respond the one way that we know he does, and that's with steely determination and big runs. When he's doing that, that's a great thing for us to feed off us a group."