Depleted South Africa hope to turnaround in familiar format

Johannesburg: The three-Test series was a hard-fought affair that went the way of South Africa 2-1. Then came the series of six one-day internationals, and it was all about Virat Kohli and the Indian spin twins, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal.

South Africa were not at their strongest, with AB de Villiers missing the first three games, and Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock going out after the first and the second ODIs respectively.

Even then, South Africa wouldn’t have anticipated a scoreline of 5-1 in India’s favour.

Between them, Yadav and Chahal picked up 33 of the 53 South African wickets to fall. If that pegged the batsmen back, the South African bowlers were put to the sword by the Indian top-order batsmen.

Shikhar Dhawan was good, with one century and two half-centuries, and Rohit Sharma took care of the fifth ODI with his 115 from the top of the order.

South Africa are again going to be without some of the men they would ideally want in their XIs: du Plessis and de Kock are still out, there’s no Hashim Amla or Kagiso Rabada around, and Imran Tahir has also been left out, while JP Duminy has been promoted as captain.

Instead, the team has two players with no international experience in Junior Dala, a 28-year-old right-arm medium pacer, and Christiaan Jonker, a 31-year-old batsman.

Also in the mix is Heinrich Klaasen, who became such a hero after playing the lead role in South Africa’s only win in the ODI series.

Teams from

South Africa: JP Duminy (capt), Farhaan Behardien, Junior Dala, AB de Villiers, Reeza Hendricks, Christiaan Jonker, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), David Miller, Chris Morris, Dane Paterson, Aaron Phangiso, Andile Phehlukwayo, Tabraiz Shamsi, JJ Smuts.

India: Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma (vice-capt), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Shikhar Dhawan, MS Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, Shardul Thakur, Jaydev Unadkat.

Pitch and condition
Sunday should be partly cloudy in Johannesburg, with it generally being warm and a tad humid.

Stats and trivia

• The last time a T20I was played at the New Wanderers Stadium, in January 2017, South Africa were bowled out for 113 before Sri Lanka completed a three-wicket win.
• 44 runs needed by Virat Kohli to complete 2000 T20I runs.

Match facts
Sunday February 18, 2018
Start time 14:30 local (12:30 GMT)