South Africa look to continue winning momentum as India hope for revival

South Africa look to continue winning momentum as India hope for revival: The T20Is are done with, we now move to the ODIs where India have been perennial underdogs against South Africa, winning only 26 of the 71 ODIs played against them.

If the Twety20Is are any indications, the South African team which looks quite settled and has outplayed India in every aspect of the game in the 2 games and will look to continue the dominance and the winning momentum. India on the other hand would like to take the positives if any, from the 2 games and move forward to make up for lost ground in this long series.

Both India and South Africa were the losing semi-finalists in the World Cup 2015. After the IPL both of these teams went to Bangladesh for a three match series ODI series and lost 2-1, something both the teams and their fans would want to forget as soon as possible. But that is where the similarities end. We shall look at how both the teams are placed at this point in time for the upcoming series:

The Teams:

India:

India will be under a lot of pressure going into the 5 match series, mainly because their bowling lacks teeth. In the T20I games, no bowler looked like taking a wicket except Ravichandran Ashwin, this eventually will be an added burden on Ashwin forcing him to do different things. The bowling unit will have to lift their standards if India has to have any chance whatsoever in this series. Dhoni has persisted with Axar Patel so far, but in the ODIs I would expect him to bring in Amit Mishra who would bring his experience and some confidence to the table. Umesh Yadav will be back for the first 3 games and his pace will be an added advantage only if he manages to control it and doesn’t end up leaking runs.

Dhoni will be hoping that Bhuvaneshwar Kumar gets back to swinging ways, Bhuvi who got his pace up by a notch and will be eager to start contributing in the wickets column right away. There will be a lot of pressure on Mohit Sharma as he is yet to announce himself in the international circuit as a wicket taking bowler and he should start justifying his place in the side, no better time than this.

In the last few months that Dhoni has lost his golden touch with the bat and is in the hunt for that one big innings to change his fortunes. While the top order, in the form of Rohit, Dhawan and Kohli, is well settled, the middle order looks quite wobbly. The “Rayudu or Rahane” debate will continue even in this series which also highlights the captain’s lack of confidence on either of the two. Raina’s form is as unpredictable as Ajantha Mendis’ bowling when he first started out and there is hardly any indication who would Dhoni play between Axar and Binny in the ODIs. In the coming series to cope up with uncertainties, Dhoni could either play himself at two down and set a platform or get Rahane to play at that position and back himself and Raina to go on and finish games.

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It gets tricky for India as the big boys of South African bowling, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel are back. It will be a mouth-watering contest Steyn and Morkel v/s Rohit and Dhawan at the top. Rohit would want to exorcise the ghosts of his horrid show against South Africa a couple of years ago. Indians are really good players of spin bowling, it will be interesting to see how they tackle Imran Tahir.

As it has been for years, this series too will depend on Indian batsmen’s ability to carry the team forward. While there is hardly any confirmation on Shami’s fitness for the ODIs, India might play with the same squad for the entirety of this series as Dhoni doesn’t like to tinker too much with his team combinations.

South Africa:

South Africa who have the upper hand going into the ODI series, would like to keep it that way. While India’s recent success in ODIs has depended on its top 3, South Africa with Du Plesis, De Villiers, Duminy and Miller has a heavily stacked middle order with each one a match winner on his day.

The arrival of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel will be a huge boost for the Proteas who will look to go for the kill from the word go. That being said, South Africa will have to worry about the spin twins, Ashwin and Mishra, who on turning tracks will pounce on the South African batsmen like easy meat.

Amla and De Kock both have had very indifferent form since the World Cup 2015 began. While Amla has scored a couple of centuries in this period, barring those he hasn’t quite been the run accumulator that he is. Kock on the other hand averages a meagre 17.54 in 12 innings this year with a solitary fifty against Sri Lanka in the Quarter Finals of the World Cup. This would be one of the area of concerns and the chink in the South African armour.

Miller and Duminy have been clinical in finishing games for South Africa and with AB de Villiers batting at 2/3 down, no score will be too big for the might South Africans.

It will be an exciting few weeks in this ODI series as two contrasting sides meet to try and out do the other working on their opponent’s weaknesses.

The Ground:

The first ODI will be played at the Green Park, Kanpur which historically has been a placid batting wicket. In the last 15 years, this ground has hosted 6 games which saw a fall of 72 wickets, an average of 6 per innings, skewing in the favour of the batsmen and there is hardly any support for the bowlers.

It gives you an impression that it is a good wicket where the captain should bat once he wins the toss, however in those 6 games, only once has the team that has batted first went on to win the game. It seems like it will be a good toss to lose as the onus then will be on winning captain to capitalize on the toss advantage.

Head to Head:

South Africa have a massive advantage of 42-26 in the 71 games played between these two teams. In India though, India have some sort of home advantage with a 13-10 ratio in 23 games.

Stat Alert:

At 5919 runs in 118 innings, Hashim Amla is on the verge of becoming the fastest batsman to 6000 ODI runs by fair distance. The current record holder Virat Kohli, made those runs in 136 innings.

Ashwin will be playing his 100^th ODI and will be keen to leave a mark against SA as he has only been able to claim 4 wickets in 5 games.

AB de Villiers will be closing in on 1000 runs against India in ODIs, currently at 921 in 23 innings at an average of 46.05, joining Gibbs, Kirsten, and Kallis, the only other South Africans to have scored 1000 or more ODI runs against India.

Probable XI:

India:

MS Dhoni (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu/Ajinkya Rahane, Axar Patel/Stuart Binny/Gurkeerat Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Amit Mishra/Mohit Sharma.

South Africa:

AB De Villiers (Captain), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, Faf du Plessis, JP Duminy, David Miller, Farhan Behardien/Chris Morris/ Khaya Zondo, Rabada/Kyle Abbot/Aaron Phangiso, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir.