Against India, South Africa elected to bowl.
On the eve of a public holiday, Aiden Markram made the decision that his team will pursue as they attempt to finish the series against India at a dry Wanderers. In honor of the Springboks Rugby World Cup victory in October, South Africans have been granted a day off tomorrow, and they won’t object to having one more reason to rejoice.
In the absence of all of their frontline pacers, an untested South African attack will need to provide that to them. Left-arm seamer Nandre Burger received his first cap and will bowl with Andile Phehlukwayo and Lizaad Williams in red-ball cricket as preparation for the Tests, with Kagiso Rabada resting, Lungi Ngidi out due to injury, and Gerald Coetzee and Marco Jansen released.
South Africa brought back experience in the form of left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj and added an extra all-rounder in Donovan Ferreira, who replaced Tristan Stubbs. South Africa has two specialist spinners in their squad on the pace-friendly Wanderers wicket, with Tabraiz Shamsi also included in the starting XI. They may have chosen to go with Maharaj and Shamsi because their only other choice would have been to play Ottniel Baartman, an uncapped medium-pacer. India’s squad remains the same as the one that was defeated on Thursday; neither Ravi Bishnoi nor Ruturaj Gaikwad are allowed.
In front of a sold-out crowd, Suryakumar Yadav declared that he would have preferred to bat in the event that he had won the toss. This made everyone pleased following the first few exchanges of the series decider.
South Africa: 1 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 2 Reeza Hendricks, 3 Aiden Markam, and 4 Matthew Breetzke 5 David Miller Donovan Ferreira, age six 7 Phehlukwayo Andile, 8 Keshav Maharaj, 9 Tabraiz Shamsi, 10 Nandre Burger, and 11 Lizaad Williams
Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, and Mukesh Kumar are the Indian players.
