The Men in Blue will be taking on Temba Bavuma’s South Africa in the T20 World Cup 2022 in Perth on Sunday. India have won two back-to-back games against Pakistan and the Netherlands.
Rohit Sharma’s team will be facing a dilemma as to who would be better to play on the WACA Stadium track. KL Rahul has not been scoring runs so Indian team management might play Rishabh Pant at the top to partner with his skipper.
However, India batting coach Vikram Rathour said, "No. We aren’t really not thinking about that," Rathour dismissed the idea of Pant’s inclusion for the time being. "I don’t think that’s a good enough sample size anyway. He’s been batting really well and has also batted well in practice games. So, we aren’t changing anything," he said about Rahul.
When asked about Pant, Rathour said, "Only 11 can play unfortunately and I know and understand Rishabh is a fantastic player and we know he can be destructive against any opposition."
On the other side, South Africa are coming after a huge 104-run win over Bangladesh at the SCG on Thursday. They have the likes of Anrich Nortje, and Kagiso Rabada who will be looking to exploit the bouncy track of Perth.
India’s predicted playing XI
KL Rahul, Rohit Sharma (c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh.
South Africa predicted playing XI
Quinton de Kock (wk), Temba Bavuma(c), Rilee Rossouw, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Tabraiz Shamsi.