This ODI series is sandwiched between a T20I series in a T20 World Cup year and a Test series, and will for that reason miss a large number of household names. It will feature, instead, a cast of characters of whom many won’t be too well known outside their home countries. South Africa’s squad includes five players who have played ten or fewer ODIs, and India’s as many as nine.
The series will give these players a chance to make selectors’ lives a little more difficult the next time they sit down to pick a squad for a higher-profile series. This isn’t to say that this one lacks profile entirely – the Wanderers will turn pink on Sunday for breast-cancer awareness, and a sellout crowd is expected to pack the stands.
South Africa LWLWW (last five ODIs, most recent first)
India LWWWW
South Africa (probable): 1 Reeza Hendricks, 2 Tony de Zorzi, 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram (capt), 5 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 6 David Miller, 7 Andile Phehlukwayo, 8 Wiaan Mulder, 9 Nandre Burger, 10 Keshav Maharaj/Tabraiz Shamsi, 11 Lizaad Williams
India (probable): 1 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 2 B Sai Sudharsan, 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (capt & wk), 6 Rinku Singh/Sanju Samson, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Arshdeep Singh, 9 Avesh Khan, 10 Kuldeep Yadav, 11 Mukesh Kumar
“It’s never nice to exit a World Cup like that. I thought we had something really good going and that does filter into this team – from the good side of things. I would say most guys are over it. The nature of cricket nowadays is the schedule is so hectic you are almost forced to move on as quickly as possible so we are pretty much past it and looking forward to the series.”
South Africa captain Aiden Markram on the scars from the World Cup semi-final exit
