India look to avoid whitewash in Jo'burg Test

Johannesburg [South Africa], Jan. 24 (ANI): India will play South Africa in the inconsequential third Test at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Wednesday and will look to avoid a 3-0 whitewash in the series.

India has a good record at the Wanderers. They have played four Tests at this venue, and never lost in any.

Wanderers offers a green pitch which will be helpful to the Indian seam bowlers and the two sides might opt to not play a spinner here.

India have been successful in taking 20 wickets in the previous Tests but had a poor show with the bat.

Indications are that after facing a lot of flak for not playing right-handed batsman Ajinkya Rahane, despite a good overseas record, he might make his way back into the playing XI.

Pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who was dropped in the last Test at the Centurion, may also be back into the side at the cost of spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

The Virat-Kohli led side has already been under fire for the series loss and thus would attempt to win the concluding Test match to avoid being remembered as the first side from India to suffer a whitewash in South Africa.

The hosts, on the other hand, will look to make a clean sweep to get close to acquire the No. 1 Test team ranking and avenge the 2015-16 Test defeat from India.

South Africa (probable): Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis (c), Quinton de Kock (wk), Theunis de Bruyn/Andile Phehlukwayo/Keshav Maharaj, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel, Lungi Ngidi

India (Probable): Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan and KL Rahul, Virat Kohli (c), Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, Parthiv Patel/Dinesh Karthik (wk), R Ashwin, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah. (ANI)

This story has not been edited. It has been published as provided by ANI