Aussies plan for yorker barrage

Australia's cricketers have no shortage of ideas as they seek to work out the best response to South Africa's strangling death bowling in the Twenty20 series opener.

The Proteas pacemen were magnificent in the final stages of Australia's innings at Adelaide Oval, yorking the likes of James Faulkner regularly to deny the allrounder boundaries.

The hosts were restricted to a sub-par total of 6-144 on Wednesday night, setting the stage for South Africa to claim an emphatic seven-wicket win.

The Australians are likely to require a better score at the MCG on Friday night if they hope to square the three-game T20 series.

"They bowled particularly well. Especially at the back end, they didn't give us much to get under," said Faulkner, who scored 41 not out and shared in a stand of 57 runs with fellow allrounder Shane Watson.

"We've spoken about that already. Numerous boys have come up with different philosophies (about how to deal with it), which is a good thing.

"It's a healthy environment to be around and discuss those sort of topics and to improve."

Innovative allrounder Glenn Maxwell, who was part of Australia's last-start Test loss in Abu Dhabi, returns to the format where he made his name as a hard-hitting allrounder.

Faulkner backed his teammate to fire, despite the far from ideal preparation.

"He can hit the ball wherever he wants. I'm sure he will slot in and do very well," he said.

"His stats would suggest he's a pretty good T20 player."

David Hussey, a teammate of Maxwell's at Victoria, suggested the offspinner could excel in all three forms of the game.

"He's a super-talented player and he's going to go a long way," Hussey said.

"It (criticism) is part and parcel of being an x-factor player. But I think his gold will outweigh the poor performances."