HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza won the toss and elected to bat for the first time in the series against Australia in the third and final cricket one-day international on Sunday.
Australia is favorite to complete a clean sweep after beating the home team by 59 runs in the opening match and followed it up with an 84-run victory in the second game on Friday.
Raza said at the toss it was a chance to try a different approach in the series after Zimbabwe failed to chase down targets in the previous two games because it was tough to bat against the older ball.
Australia made two changes with Xavier Bartlett returning to the side in place of the rested Josh Hazlewood. Spencer Johnson replaced Billy Stanlake after the seamer left the field in the second game due to side strain while bowling his fifth over.
Graeme Cremer, who turned 40 on Saturday, returned to ODIs after eight years as Zimbabwe also made two changes. Cremer came in for Wellington Masakadza, who was left out due to a niggle.
Fast bowler Newman Nyamhuri, who took his maiden five-wicket haul in the first match, was rested and Zimbabwe brought in Ernest Masuku, also for the first time in the series.
Lineups:
Zimbabwe: Brian Bennett, Ben Curran, Innocent Kaia, Brendan Taylor, Craig Ervine, Sikandar Raza (captain), Wessly Madhevere, Brad Evans, Ernest Masuku, Graeme Cremer, Blessing Muzarabani
Australia: Mitchell Marsh (captain), Travis Head, Cooper Connolly, Josh Inglis, Alex Carey, Matt Renshaw, Ollie Peake, Xavier Bartlett, Nathan Ellis, Adam Zampa, Spencer Johnson
See AP’s full cricket coverage here
Zimbabwe's captain Sikandar Butt, right, plays a shot as Australia's wicketkeeper Josh Inglis watches on during a second one day international cricket match between Zimbabwe and Australia in Harare, Zimbabwe, Friday, Sept.18, 2026. (AP Photo/Wonder Mashura)
BERLIN (AP) — Polling stations opened Sunday in two German state elections in which the far-right AfD party is expected to make further gains that could determine whether Chancellor Friedrich Merz can hold on to power and push ahead with reforms in Europe’s biggest economy.
The state elections are taking place in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural region in the formerly communist and less prosperous east, and in the capital, Berlin.
The vote comes two weeks after the anti-migration, Russia-friendly Alternative for Germany, or AfD, finished just short of a majority in the small eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, and has its best chance yet of forming the country’s first far-right regional government since World War II.
Merz’s authority was severely damaged by his party’s stinging defeat in the Sept. 6 election by AfD — a result that shocked many Germans who had believed their country had developed an immunity to nationalism and assertions of racial superiority after confronting the horrors of its Nazi past through education and laws to outlaw persecution.
The AfD is expected to make significant gains in Sunday's elections as well, but has no realistic path to power in Berlin and faces a much stronger challenge from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s center-left governor than it did from Merz’s party in Saxony-Anhalt.
Prospects for Merz’s center-right Christian Democratic Union are bleaker. It could lose the mayor’s office in Berlin. If things go very badly, it could fail for the first time to win seats in a state legislature anywhere by falling below 5% of the vote in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where it was already weak.
Merz, 70, became Germany’s leader 16 months ago with promises to turn around an economy that has barely grown in years, but has failed to lift a sullen national mood and has himself become deeply unpopular.
The strong showing of AfD in the Saxony-Anhalt election has further weakened the chancellor's standing on the national level as well, and in the past two weeks there have been calls even from within his own party to replace him as chancellor. No top-level allies have called publicly for his departure, and many have warned against “personnel debates.”
Apparently anticipating a tough postelection period, Merz abandoned a planned trip to New York next week to attend the U.N. General Assembly. Despite the strong headwinds, he has repeatedly said that he’s determined to stay on and finish his term as chancellor.
Voters sit at a voting booth in Schwerin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026, as the vote for the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state election, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (Philip Dulian/dpa via AP)
A man casts his vote at a polling station during the Berlin state election in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
Social Democratic Party Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the party's top candidate for the upcoming state election Manuela Schwesig poses in front of an election campaign poster reading "The Woman Against Blue", in Schwerin, Germany, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. ( Jens Buettner/dpa via AP)
Leif-Erik Holm, the AfD's candidate for state premier in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, speaks at the campaign's closing rally in Neubrandenburg, Germany, on Friday, Sept. 18, 2026. (Philip Dulian/dpa via AP)
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrives for the Cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
