India return to Cape Town with 3-0 dreams

When India arrived in Cape Town last month, they were a nervous lot, gingerly waiting to face the music from the Proteas seamers without a single warm-up game behind their back. The result was a shattering one. A month later, India is again at Cape Town, this time with broad shoulders, dictating terms, tormenting the opposition with spin and the thought of another one-sided affair.

When India arrived in Cape Town last month, they were a nervous lot, gingerly waiting to face the music from the Proteas seamers without a single warm-up game behind their back. The result was a shattering one. A month later, India is again at Cape Town, this time with broad shoulders, dictating terms, tormenting the opposition with spin and the thought of another one-sided affair.

Before the start of the series, all the focus was on the performance of the Indian pace battery in overseas condition. But after two ODIs, spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have stolen all the lime-light. No one could have calculated the impact that the Indian spinners would create in the limited over series. Both Chahal and Kuldeep, relatively new in international arena and on their first major overseas assignment have performed exceptionally well.

The spinners have jointly bagged 13 wickets in the two ODI’s which also includes maiden 5-wicket haul for leggie Yuzvendra Chahal. The duo wrecked havoc in the second encounter and clinched 8 wickets. South African batsmen looked completely clueless against the budding spinners.

In the practice session on Tuesday the Proteas batsmen only did one thing. They batted against the spinners. Two net bowlers bowled spin in the ‘spin-tackling’ practice session went on for close to 90 minutes. Even one of the support staff turned himself as a leg spinner and helped the batsmen in the session. All of this was done to counter the mystery duo as the pitch in Centurion is also expected to favour the spinners and once again Kuldeep and Chahal are expected to play a crucial role in the match.

The South African batting coach Dale Benkenstein after the second encounter sounded helpless when he said "The tough thing is you are playing against two wrist spinners, and not a lot of players have played against. It does take time to get used to their change-ups and their variations."

Ahead of the third ODI the hosts have on only one task at hand which is to come up solution for tackling the Indian spinners.

Already suffering with absence of veteran AB De Villiers, captain Faf du Plisis and wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock, bouncing back in the third ODI will be difficult for the hosts. The side looks fallen apart and the horrors of the second ODI would still be haunting the team.

On the other hand, the Indian team will eye unprecedented 3-0 lead against injury-hit South Africans. Previously, India have managed to win two ODIs in a bilateral series in South Africa -- in 1992-93 and in 2010-11, only to lose 2-5 and 2-3, respectively. But given the current circumstances in the ongoing series, the men-in-blue have a bright chance to better their record on South African soil.

Going into the third ODI, India is unlikely to fiddle with the winning combination, which has excelled in all the departments.

Teams

India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.

South Africa: Aiden Markram (Captain), Hashim Amla, Jean Paul Duminy, Imran Tahir, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Lungisani Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Khayelihle Zondo, Farhaan Behardien, Heinrich Klaasen (WK).