De Villiers, who missed the Tests against New Zealand recently, underwent a fitness Test on Tuesday morning and failed it, thus ruling him out of the ODI series at home against the Aussies.The operation also means he will miss the Tests in Australia, including a day-night Test, which is a heavy blow for the Proteas as he is the skipper and best batsman.

Proteas team manager, Mohammed Moosajee, commented: “AB de Villiers is still symptomatic and has not recovered from his elbow impingement injury which makes surgery the only long-term solution. We have tried the conservative management of rest, physio, rehab and cortisone infiltration into the elbow, but that has not yielded the results that we would have liked. He will have surgery to the elbow early next week and the target is to hopefully have him back for the Sri Lankan home series over the Christmas period.”

Rilee Rossouw will remain with the squad for the five-match ODI series against Australia starting at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Friday.

Sport24