After being whitewashed by the South African team in the two-match test series, Team India is all set to play in its go-to white-ball format against South Africa, and the first match of the series is being played at Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s home ground in Ranchi. In this series, Team India has played three matches so far, and the team has had to use different captains for all three matches. Despite that, Team India had lost all three tosses of this series and also lost the toss for straight 19th time in an ODI.
After Rohit Sharma and Subhman Gill, KL Rahul has now also joined the bizarre, weird list.
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What's happening with India's toss luck?
The Indian team under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy has lost 15 consecutive ODI tosses. Rohit Sharma’s last match as an ODI captain was against New Zealand, in which he also lost the toss. It was the highest by any ODI captain, before Rohit Sharma, Brian Lara lost 12 consecutive tosses. After Rohit Sharma’s stint as captain, the new captains also lost 4 consecutive tosses. The odds of losing 19 tosses in a row are just 1 in 5,24,288, which is 0.0001907%.
It is almost impossible, yet it happened. Winning the first toss of the ODI series, South Africa’s stand-in captain Aiden Markram forced team India to bat first. It is expected that dew will play a major role in the second innings, as winter has just touched India. At this time in eastern India, dew comes in heavily in the evening.
South Africa team combination
Temba Bavuma, the regular ODI captain of South Africa, has been rested for this match. In the toss, the South African captain Aiden Markram, had confirmed that Keshav Maharaj has also been rested, and Prenelan Subrayen and Markram will play as spinners. Bavuma's absence allowed the inclusion of both Ryan Rickelton and Quinton de Kock. Marco Jansen and Nandre Burger joined Ottneil Baartman as the left-arm quicks.
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India team combination
Team India has also gone differently, as Harshit Rana has been chosen before Nitish Kumar Reddy as the number 8 batsman, and in the absence of Subhman Gill and Shreyas Iyer, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Yashasvi Jaiswal got an opportunity for this match. Sundar takes the place of Axar, and Jadeja has also made a comeback in the ODI setup. India has gone with six bowling options. Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna, and Kuldeep Yadav will be the frontline bowlers of this evening.
Playing XI
India 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 5 6 Washington Sundar, 6 KL Rahul (C & WK), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harshit Rana, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Prasidh Krishna
South Africa 1 Ryan Rickelton, 2 Quinton de Kock (WK), 3 Aiden Markram (C), 4 Matthew Breetzke, 5 Tony de Zorzi, 6 Dewald Brevis, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Corbin Bosch, 9 Prenelan Subrayen, 10 Nandre Burger, 11 Ottneil Baartman
