India and South Africa will square-off one last time in this series on 15th November at Johannesburg.
Match Preview:
India is having a great year as far as the shortest format of the game is concerned. They won the T20 World Cup June, whitewashed Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka at home. And now they are on verge of beating South Africa after taking an unassailable 2-1 lead in a four-match T20 series.
Even without the main players in the squad, India has played a good brand of cricket in South Africa maintaining their great record at their homeland.
Tilak Varma was the player of the match in the 3rd T20 for India. It is good that India have different players stepping up in every game but their one concern remains – the woes of the lower order.
Talking about South Africa, one thing we are all sure about, luck, most of the time did not support them. It was yet another case in the third T20 where Africa could have pulled out a miraculous change but they fell just 11-run short.
Despite the result not favouring them, South Africa had a chance to rejoice and enjoy in the name of Marco Jansen. Making his comeback from Shoulder injury, Jansen has been top-notch and on-fleek of India. The lanky player stood impactful for his side both with the bat and bowl.
One can argue that he has only taken three wickets in this series so far but his economy of 6.41 is impressive to say the least as India passed 200+ score twice in this series. The southpaw is also a leading run-scorer for the side which tells us a lot about Africa’s line-up.
The form of Aiden Markram and Reeza Hendricks in the concerning sign for Africa and if they want to close up the series in a draw, these two batters need to level their batting up!
Probable Playing XI:
South Africa: 1 Ryan Rickelton, 2 Reeza Hendricks, 3 Aiden Markram (capt), 4 Tristan Stubbs, 5 Heinrich Klaasen (wk), 6 David Miller, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Gerald Coetzee/Nqabayomzi Peter, 9 Andile Simelane, 10 Keshav Maharaj, 11 Lutho Sipamla
India: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Tilak Varma, 4 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 5 Hardik Pandya, 6 Rinku Singh, 7 Ramandeep Singh, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Ravi Bishnoi, 11 Varun Chakravarthy
Pitch and weather report:
Johannesburg’s pitch is usually a high-scoring venue. During the last outing on this ground in 2023, South Africa faced the same team when Surya hit a hundred to post 201. And in return the homeside was bundled out for just 95.
Talking about weather, there is a prediction of rain but probably it won’t affect the game.
Head-to-head record:
South Africa have faced India in 29 T20i games and won 11 games while India stood victorious in 17.
Prediction:
Given how South Africa is yet to threaten the opponent with their batting and lose to India in 2023 in the same venue, India may win the last T20 of the series as well.
Where to Watch:
India: Sports18, JioCinema App
South Africa: SuperSport
Pakistan: Tapmad
Australia: Fox Cricket
UK: Sky Sports, Sky Go App
