India vs South Africa | Predicted XI for 3rd an final T20I in Cape Town
By SportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor
So, the tour has finally come to the place where it all started - a trip of emotions, excitement and thrill. Cape Town – the stage for many an India-SA epic will host the third and final T20I between the two nations and each team will try to finish the tour on a high and take the series honours.
Rohit Sharma : For all his majesty in the white-ball format of the game, Rohit has completely failed to live up to his lofty expectations, scoring a minuscule 170 runs in the six ODIs and 21 runs in the T20Is. But thanks to his propensity to find gaps with effortless ease, Rohit has it in him to end the series on a good note.
Shikhar Dhawan : While his T20 record is borderline embarrassing, in the first match of this series, he managed to be India’s saviour and scored a delightful 72. When he gets going, he is the ultimate superstar and has the ability to blow away any world-class bowler’s reputations to smithereens.
Virat Kohli : Indian cricket’s ultimate pin-up star. The man is in a league of his own and if there was a shred of doubt about it, then he put everything to bed through his unbeaten 160-run innings in the third ODI in Cape Town. Come the final T20I today, he will try to repeat the same performance once again. If he needs more inspiration, he needs only 17 more runs to be only the third player to score 2000 T20I runs.
Suresh Raina : The Chennai Super Kings star batsman had a good outing in Centurion and after the top order’s failure, he capitalized on the bad balls to score a meaningful 30 off 24 balls. Raina was a powerful slogger, but in the last match, he showed the other side of his batting by playing more drives and cuts to score as much as he did. He will look to use the match as an opportunity to secure a permanent place for him in the side.
Manish Pandey : Centurion was the stage where Pandey, playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, became the first Indian to score a century in the IPL. Last game, with the top-three being out for dismal scores, he made a brilliant partnership with MS Dhoni to end up with an unbeaten 79 – an innings that he must have been proud of. However, he needs to prove that the innings was not a flash in the pan and Cape Town may be the place.
MS Dhoni: Dhoni have been undergoing a terrible run of form in the trip and his troubles in hitting big shots immediately on arrival was a constant problem. However, in his last match, knowing that there was enough over to open his arms, he kept on finding regular boundaries and managed to score his second T20I half-century. A firing Dhoni is always a joy to watch and he can send the entire nation into a tizzy if he would be able to recreate one more.
Hardik Pandya: While the all-rounder didn’t get a chance to bat in the last match, he was truly mediocre with the ball. While other pacers managed to extract some amount of swing, he was unable to do so and was at the receiving end of a Heinrich Klassen carnage. It is high time for the Baroda lad to come out of the hype and be the consistent player that the team has come to accept with.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar: Coming from a fifer in the first T20I, Bhuvneshwar was supposed to carry the momentum forward in the Centurion game and his first over was exactly that. He didn’t allow any rooms for batsmen and kept bowling on a single channel. While his performance in the limited-overs leg has not been that phenomenal, he has to carry the baton, especially due to the probable absence of his partner in crime, Jasprit Bumrah.
Jaydev Unadkat: While other bowlers were rendered ineffective, Unadkat managed to pick two top-order wickets in the form of JJ Smuts and Heinrich Klaasen. Time and again, he has proved that he can be the precise miser while picking wickets and one more good performance may result in a permanent place in the side.
Yuzvendra Chahal : The leggie was in god mode during the ODI series building a partnership with Kuldeep Yadav that appeared to be almost infallible. In the T20I series though, it has been a whole different ball game as he has conceded over a century of runs in two matches. However, with India’s fearless approach still applicable, it is highly unlikely that the leggie will be rested.
Shardul Thakur : The 26-year-old was given a tough job when he was handed his first T20I cap in the second match at Centurion. With a wet ball to handle, Thakur did pretty well as he conceded 31 runs on a wicket where 200 runs looked to be an easy task. Would be very unfortunate if he is dropped for the decider in Cape Town.
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