Toss: South Africa chose to bowl vs India
Aiden Markram decided his side would be chasing as they look to close out the series against India in a dry Wanderers on the eve of a bank holiday. The South Africans have been given tomorrow to celebrate the Springboks’ Rugby World Cup victory in October and they won’t mind an extra reason to celebrate.
To give them that, an experimental South African attack will have to perform well in the absence of all their front-line pacers. With Kagiso Rabada rested, Lungi Ngidi out through injury and Gerald Coetzee and Marco Jansen free to play red-ball cricket in the build-up to the Tests, left-armer Nandre Burger received his first cap and will bowl alongside Lizaad Williams and Andile Phehlukwayo.
South Africa included an extra all-rounder in Donovan Ferreira in place of Tristan Stubbs and brought back experience in the form of left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj. With Tabraiz Shamsi also in the line-up, South Africa have two specialist spinners in their squad in the pace-friendly Wanderers deck. Their only other option would be to play Ottniel Baartman, an undrafted medium pacer, so they may have opted for the combination of Maharaj and Shamsi. India remain unchanged from the squad that lost on Thursday, with no place for Ravi Bishnoi or Ruturai Gaikwad.
Suryakumar Yadav, in front of a sell-out crowd, said he would have chosen to bat had he won the toss, which left everyone happy after the series-deciding opening exchanges.
South Africa: 1 Reeza Hendricks, 2 Matthew Breetzke, 3 Aiden Markam, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 David Miller, 6 Donovan Ferreira 7 Andile Phehlukwayo, 8 Keshav Maharaj, 9 Lizaad Williams, 10 Nandre Burger, 11 Tabraiz
India: 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Shubman Gill, 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Jitesh Sharma (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Arshdeep Singh, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Mukeshmar, 1