India Finally Break Toss Curse Heading Into ODI Series Decider vs South Africa

India's toss curse is broken in Vizag as KL Rahul wins the Men in Blue's first coin toss in ODIs since 2023, gearing up to take on South Africa.

KL Rahul is captaining India in this ODI series against South Africa

Source : X, @BCCI

India has finally won a coin toss for a One Day International (ODI) match, gearing up to face South Africa in Vizag. 

This win comes after a whopping 20 consecutive toss losses, with the last victory dating back to 2023.

KL Rahul, captain of the Men in Blue, won the toss against Proteas' Temba Bavuma in the final clash of the three-match ODI series, and elected to bowl first.

India's Bizzare Toss Losing Streak

Prior to this toss win, the last time India had won a toss in a 50-over match was ahead of their ICC World Cup 2023 Semi Final against New Zealand at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Since then, Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, and now KL Rahul had all taken turns, but the coin has stubbornly refused to fall in India’s favour.

What started as a light-hearted quirk gradually snowballed into one of modern cricket’s strangest statistical streaks, leaving fans baffled.

Yet, despite this bizarre run of bad luck, the Men in Blue had continued to dominate on the field on most occasions. Their results during this stretch have remained overwhelmingly positive, proving that while tosses may influence matches, performance still makes the bigger difference.

The most recent examples came in the IND vs AUS 3rd ODI and the IND vs SA 1st ODI, both of which India won comfortably despite again losing the toss. Strong batting displays from veterans Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli played a key role, especially the latter who has recently scored back-to-back tons.

IND vs SA 3rd ODI: Playing XIs

Both teams have made a few changes in their lineup for the series decider clash:

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

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