India are hosting South Africa for five T20Is, the first of which will be played on June 9 in national capital Delhi. The Indian team will be without some of the big names in this series. The likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah have been rested while KL Rahul and Kuldeep Yadav have been ruled out due to injuries. Rahul was supposed to lead the side in Sharma’s absence, but with he himself missing the series, Rishabh Pant has been named the captain.
South Africa, on the other hand, will be led by Temba Bavuma. They come into this series on the back of a 2-1 ODI series loss to Bangladesh in March and will be looking for redemption. They have a strong squad comprising of some of the players who recently performed well in the IPL 2022.
The match will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, which is historically a slow pitch. Anything more than 170 is a challenging total on this ground.
In the past, India and South Africa have faced each other in 15 T20I matches. Out of these 15 games, India have won 9ninewhereas South Africa have come out victorious on six occasions. Earlier in January this year, India visited South Africa for a Test and ODI series. They lost the Test series 2-1 and were whitewashed in the ODI series. The T20I series will now offer them a chance to make amends.
Predicted XI
India
Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant (c & wk), Deepak Hooda, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Avesh Khan, Yuzvendra Chahal.
South Africa
Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma (c), Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Reeza Hendricks, David Miller, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Anrich Nortje.
