As Cricket Australia boss James Sutherland promised an inquiry into the poor crowds this summer, Smith's rapidly rising star lit up the MCG. The shame was that so few people – just 14,177 – were at the ground to see him conjure a remarkable Australian victory to clinch the series against South Africa.

Smith made a brilliant 104 from 112 balls to drag the home side from a seemingly impossible position to win by three wickets with an over to spare.

He had a willing accomplice in Matthew Wade, the pair breaking a 25-year-old MCG partnership record belonging to Dean Jones and Simon O'Donnell by putting on 121 for the sixth wicket. And after Wade departed for a punchy 52, another young punk strode to the wicket in the form of James Faulkner to deliver some lusty blows and finish the job. Faulkner's fireworks (34 from 19 balls) included six fours and enhanced his reputation as a master finisher.

"He comes in from ball one and looks like he's been out there for about an hour the way he hits them," Smith said of Faulkner.  "He's a big, strong lad and he hits the ball really clean, and he's just so effective there at the end of an innings."

The home side was in trouble at 5-98, but thanks to Smith and Wade, ran down the target of 268. It was one of the great run chases, for the Australians needed 8.6 an over from the last 10.

Smith, 25, touted as a future captain, wasn't even in the team at the start of the series but in the past two games has inserted himself into the nightmares of Proteas captain A.B. de Villiers with a busy and incredibly watchable innings of 73 in Canberra and a second one-day international century in Melbourne.

"It ranks right up there," said Smith, who was bowled trying to slog Robin Peterson in the 49th over. "We just needed to consolidate and we knew if we had a few wickets in hand at the end it was going to get a lot easier to go hard."

Until Smith's heroics, de Villiers' masterclass looked set to define the game. The Proteas captain's 91 from 88 balls was the controlled innings his team needed to reach a competitive score against an Australian attack that was a man down after Nathan Coulter-Nile injured his hamstring. The strapping WA quick hurt the same leg that required surgery during the winter and took no further part in the match.

The crowd was the fourth-lowest at the MCG for a one-day international involving Australia.

This was despite perfect weather and a contest between two sides tipped to be around at the pointy end of the World Cup four months from now. But ODI crowds have been flat in Melbourne for a decade and cricket in November struggles at the box office. Both sides rested star players, with Mitchell Johnson and Morne Morkel conserving energy ahead of marathon summers.

"It's not a good crowd and it's not something we're terribly happy about," Sutherland said.

"It's an unconventional time of year for us to be playing but there's a lot more to it, and we'll do our own assessments to understand that.

"I'd like to think we can do better but we also know we have got a huge summer of cricket coming up and at the MCG we have literally sold already hundreds of thousands of tickets to cricket to be played from Boxing Day onwards."

CA also pointed to strong TV audiences on Channel Nine, where the limited overs games have averaged 1.3 million viewers as evidence of an appetite for one-day cricket, and to the fact that more than 500,000 tickets have been sold for World Cup games in February and March.

"I think people are probably conscious that there's a lot of cricket to come. We've got a Test match not too far away, we've got Big Bash League coming up. I don't want to be caught providing specific reasons without us doing our own research to understand it, which we will," Sutherland said.

Australia had a new-look attack with Josh Hazlewood rested in anticipation of a possible Test debut and Coulter-Nile recalled along with Faulkner, Glenn Maxwell and Pat Cummins for his first one-day international in 2 years.

De Villiers and Miller put on a stand of 122 but the Australians fought back to restrict the touring side after Cummins tricked the South African captain with a slower ball the Proteas failed to cash in at the end of the innings.