IND vs SA 1 st T20I Preview: India's bench strength faces Proteas might

IND vs SA 1 st T20I Preview: Calling the Proteas side mighty comes from the fact that they are playing their full strength squad and are not missing out on any key member due to injury and otherwise.

Battle hardened South African players will be up against India in a five-match T20I series, starting with the first one at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. The Indian team, which was already missing the stalwarts like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah, also lost the services of KL Rahul just on the eve of this game. 

KL Rahul, who was named the stand-in captain in place of Rohit for this series, was ruled out with a hamstring injury and along with him another potential Playing 11 member Kuldeep Yadav also got injured and was ruled out. Now, India are going into the series almost with their bench strength and it would be a test of the perseverance of that bench strength against the Proteas' might. 

Calling the Proteas side mighty comes from the fact that they are playing their full strength squad and are not missing out on any key member due to injury ad otherwise. In terms of sheer numbers, they are far more experienced than the Indian side and hence hold the edge in the battle of Feroz Shah Kotla. 

Nortje Rabada and Shamsi: The three dangerous operators with ball

Anrich Nortje with his pace is going to be great threat to the Indian batters although they would have played Umran Malik in the nets. Both Rabada and Nortje were part of the Delhi Capitals franchise, although Nortje hasn’t played much at Kotla. But the IPL numbers of both the players in similar conditions in the UAE are belligerent as they took a total of 52 wickets between them in IPL 2020. 

Tabraiz Shamis on the other hand is Chinamana and Indian right-handed batters off late have failed to read left-arm spinners, be it Chinaman or otherwise. Shamsi has been in prolific form as well as coming into this series, he has taken 19 wickets in his last 10 T20I encounters and another seven in the last four domestic T20s. He is even ranked number one in ICC T20I bowler’s ranking. 

Golden opportunity for Hooda, Karthik and Iyer 

To tackle that threat of South African bowling, India have to themselves three players who have been waiting in the wings for quite some time to get an opportunity on the main stage to show their character and performance as a player. Now that KL Rahul is out and in all probability Ishan Kishan and Ruturaj Gaikwad will open the innings, Deepak Hooda and Shreyas Iyer will bat at number three and four, their favourite positions.

Dinesh Karthik will also have an opportunity to bat at number five or six alternatively with Rishabh Pant. Hence, it is a chance for all these players to show their mettle and perform in a way that nobody could dare touch them and their position till the time T20 World Cup 2022 arrives. 

Thus when it will be 07:00 pm IST at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, it will be time for the test of India’s bench strength against the South African might.