Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Shikhar Dhawan are back into the Indian ODI side, as South Africa travels to India to play 3 ODI matches. This series adds to another set of irrelevant series in Virat Kohli’s words. In the year of T20 World cup and the progressing Test championship, ODIs add no value to the teams.
Virat was expected to be rested along with Rohit Sharma, who has been rested again for this series. But, in turn, the announcement came in that Virat will lead the team for this 3-match series. Few questions were raised for that Virat, who called the ODIs irrelevant during the New Zealand ODIs, is yet again selected for a context-less ODI series.
The Indian captain is playing continuous cricket for the last few years, and this series will be followed with the 2-months long IPL tournament. It should have been ideal if he were rested for this series. It must be his bad form that made him play this series. Also, the absence of Rohit Sharma, might have pushed the management to play Virat, so that the team will look balanced in terms of experience.
In other big news, Hardik Pandya, who is back after a long injury gap is part of the Indian team again. The all-rounder made full use of the recent DY Patil tournament, where he demolished domestic bowlers all over the park. And, this will be a noted comeback series for Shikhar Dhawan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
For South Africa, they whitewashed Australia in the home ODI series recently. Still, they will play the second side here as India are always the dominant home side.
Schedule – IND vs SA – 3 ODIs, 2020
The venues for 3 ODI games, in order, are:
- Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium, Dharamsala
- Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow
- Eden Garden, Kolkata
The matches start at 1.30 PM Indian time on 12th, 15th, and 18th of March 2020, respectively.
Squads
Indian Squad:
Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Virat Kohli (c), KL Rahul (wk), Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav, Shubman Gill.
South African Squad:
Quinton de Kock (c & wk), Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Faf du Plessis, Kyle Verreynne, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Jon-Jon Smuts, Andile Phehlukwayo, Lungi Ngidi, Lutho Sipamla, Beuran Hendricks, Anrich Nortje, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Janneman Malan.
IND vs SA – ODI – Head to Head
All format Head to Head between India and South Africa looks like:
| Format | Test | ODI | T20 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matches Played | 42 | 88 | 23 |
| INDIA won | 15 | 35 | 13 |
| SOUTH AFRICA won | 17 | 50 | 9 |
| Draw/Tie/Abondoned | 10 | 3 | 1 |
Detailed Head to Head in ODIs,
Matches Played: 85
India won: 35
South Africa won: 46
Tied: 0
No Result: 4
More news to follow! Follow us in our Social Media pages for regular updates on the series.
