South Africa-India’s first test in Centurion from today, will Team India be able to create history?
He endured the heartache of a lifetime 36 evenings ago, but Rohit Sharma will give it his all to erase the memories of the World Cup final defeat as he looks to end India’s 31-year wait for a Test series win on South African soil. Focusing on finishing.
The two-match Test series, starting in Centurion on Boxing Day, will be India’s ninth series in the Rainbow Nation since 1992, and captain Rohit will have the tough task of overcoming a difficult terrain that has always been named Is. The team’s ‘final frontier’.
However, for the action to resume at the SuperSport Park, the heavy rain expected over the first two days will need to subside.
The Centurion track offers variable bounce and is one of the fastest in the region. And this makes for an interesting contest between bat and ball in relatively cool and windy conditions in open fields, where the ball may move slightly.
For the golden generation of Indian cricketers, this is both their last African safari and a chance to achieve what no other team had been able to do in the previous eight tours.
In Temba Bavuma’s South Africa, they have a team with a pace bowling attack that can make some of the young Indian batsmen look like cats on a hot tin roof.
For Yashasvi Jaiswal, this will be the first big test against a quality attack of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee. The surge will be much greater than what they encountered in the Caribbean, and its volatile nature will ask them profound questions.
Similarly, Shubman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, who have proven their mettle on subcontinent pitches, need to improve their game in more challenging batting conditions.
Iyer, in particular, with his well-documented weakness against the short ball, will have to do something really special.
“We encourage players to play (in the manner) they feel comfortable in. At the end of the day they are judged by the results they produce. They know that,” Dravid said.
Teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Prasidh Krishna, KS Bharat (wk), Abhimanyu Easwaran (2nd Test).
South Africa: Temba Bavuma (captain), Aiden Markram, Tony De Zorzi, Dean Elgar, Keegan Pietersen, Kyle Verreynne (wk), Tristan Stubbs (wk), Nandre Berger, Marco Jansen, Wiaan Mulder, Gerald Coetzee, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, David Bedingham.
