• Home
  • Match Hub
  • Sundar Dropped Tilak In As India Break Toss Curse And Invite South Africa To Bat First In 3rd Odi

Sundar dropped, Tilak in as India break toss curse and invite South Africa to bat first in 3rd ODI

Abhinav Tyagi

KL Rahul and Temba Bavuma - (Source: @Johns/X.com)KL Rahul and Temba Bavuma - (Source: @Johns/X.com)

For the 3rd and final ODI of the series, the caravan has now moved to the Dr. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA–VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam. It is a crucial match for both India and South Africa as the series is on line with 1-1 after two games.

India have finally broken the toss curse after losing the coin flip for the 20th times and opted to field first. Notably, KL Rahul celebrated after winning the toss and even the fans went berserk seeing India win the coin flip for the first time since 2023 ODI World Cup semi-final.

Talking about the team changes, India have made one change as Washington Sundar has been dropped with Tilak Varma coming in.  For South Africa, they have two forced changes because of injuries as Tony de Zorzi and Nandre Burger miss out.

India vs South Africa: Playing XI

South Africa Playing XI: Ryan Rickelton, Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma, Matthew Breetzke, Aiden Markram (c), Dewald Brevis, Corbin Bosch, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Ottneil Baartman

India Playing XI : Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, KL Rahul (c), Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna

India vs South Africa: Captains Thoughts

KL Rahul (India Captain): "Yeah, I think you (Murali Kartik) should do more tosses. We are looking to bowl first. A little bit, we trained here last night. There was dew but it didn't come as soon as it did at Ranchi or Raipur. I don't think it is going to play as much of a role as it did in the previous games. But yeah, we wanted to chase a total and see how we can bowl first. 

Temba Bavuma (South Africa's Skipper): "Yeah, we would’ve bowled first as well. The wicket doesn’t look the easiest, so the plan is simple - start well upfront, assess conditions early, and set things up for the middle order. If we can put a competitive score on the board, we back ourselves to defend it.