Debut for Simelane as South Africa choose to bowl against India in first T20I
Written by I Dig SportsSouth Africa chose to bowl v India
India went spin heavy with two legspinners in Varun Chakravarthy and Ravi Bishnoi, left-arm spinner Axar Patel, left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh and right-arm quick Avesh Khan. There was no room for uncapped allrounder Ramandeep Singh. Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma could also bowl spin. Their batting was headlined by Sanju Samson, Suryakumar Yadav and Hardik Pandya but ends with Axar at No. 7.
Suryakumar was happy to bat first on a surface that should suit big run-scoring in conditions where a full game should be played. Despite some grey clouds overhead, a strong breeze should keep them moving and the sizeable crowd entertained.
South Africa: 1 Ryan Rickelton, 2 Aiden Markram (capt), 3 Tristan Stubbs, 4 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 5 David Miller, 6 Patrick Kruger, 7 Marco Jansen, Andile Simelane, 9 Gerald Coetzee, 10 Keshav Maharaj, 11 Nqabayomzi Peter.
India: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Arshdeep Singh, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Avesh Khan, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.