South Africa will face India in a 2-match Test series, starting on Boxing Day, 26 December. South Africa will face a near full strength squad in the Test series – with Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah getting back into the mix for the first time after ODI World Cup Final defeat.
The only top fast bowler missing from the side is Mohammed Shami, who was not cleared by the Board of Control for Cricket in India medical board after failing to recover in time from his ankle injury. While former India cricketers believe that Shami is a huge miss for the side in South African conditions, Proteas captain Temba Bavuma disagrees. Bavuma, while speaking at the pre-match press conference said that India have incredible squad depth and the player replacing Mohammed Shami also has a lot of talent.
“As cricketers you want to come up against the best and Mohammed Shami is one of the best going around and most of us would be looking forward to coming up against him. But India being India, and with the depth that they have, you have to trust that whoever comes in will also put you under pressure,” Bavuma told the reporters on Sunday, December 24.
Adapting to Conditions Key
Bavuma spoke about playing in home conditions and said that his team will adapt a lot better than the Indian team with rain-threat looming on Day 1 of the Test match.
“Being home conditions, we understand the advantage our side has, you will expect us to adapt a lot better, and Indian bowling attack is quite a strong one and obviously Shami is not there but it’s still a strong one. The fact that they have been able to achieve so much success in Tests over the past 5-10 years period is because of that bowling attack,” he lavished praise.
India were forced to make two late changes to their squad. KS Bharat and Abhimanyu Easwaran were brought into the team after Ishan Kishan pulled out due to personal reasons, and Ruturaj Gaikwad flew back to India to begin recovery of his finger injury.
India Test Squad vs SA
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Abhimanyu Easwaran, KL Rahul (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Prasidh Krishna, KS Bharat (wk).
