World Cup 2015 Match 13 Group B Preview: India vs South Africa

World Cup 2015 Match 13 Group B Preview: India vs South Africa:

Date: February 22, 2015               Time: 0900 IST
Venue: Melbourne

India will face off against South Africa at Melbourne in one the most mouthwatering clashes of Group B. South Africa have never lost to India in previous 3 meetings in 1992, 1999 and 2011.

India

India had a perfect outing against Pakistan. Their opener Shikhar Dhawan scored some much needed runs, even Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina came into some runs against Pakistani bowling. Now their main objective will be to neutralize the threat of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. The good thing will be that the match is on Melbourne ground that uses drop-in pitches, which may help India in getting some spin from it.

Indian bowling also clicked during the match. R. Ashwin spun a web around the Pakistani batsmen, forcing them to attack Umesh Yadav and losing wickets in the process. If Ashwin could do that to Pakistani batsmen, South Africans are weak against spin and Ashwin and Jadeja can definitely exploit that.

South Africa

South Africa was made to work for a win by Zimbabwe. Thanks to JP Duminy and David Miller, they manage to put a total that was too much for Zimbabwe to chase.

South Africa would want their openers to click especially Quinton de Kock. Amla and AB de Villiers got starts before losing their wickets, but De Kock failed to manage to take advantage of a weak bowling attack and play himself in. South Africa has enough batting power to help them counter Indian bowling. They will hope AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla would counter the spin of Ashwin and Jadeja.
Their bowling was effective against the Zimbabwean batsmen, but it’s a whole different story against India. It will be interesting to see how Steyn, Morkel, Philander and Tahir tackled an in-form Kohli, Dhawan, Rahane and Dhoni.

Last 5 ODIs:
India: W L NR L L
South Africa: W W L W W

Possible Playing XI:
South Africa :  AB de Villiers (c), Hashim Amla, Kyle Abbott, Quinton de Kock (wk), JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Rilee Rossouw, Dale Steyn.

India: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, MS Dhoni (C/WK), Ravindra Jadeja,Mohammad Shami, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar