LIVE: Amla, de Kock open Protea innings

Live coverage of 1st ODI between India and South Africa

South Africa vs India, 1^st ODI, Durban, live scorecard

1st innings

South Africa - 23/0

overs: 6

Toss: South Africa won the toss and elected to bat first

Squads:

SA XI: Faf du Plessis (capt), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy, Imran Tahir, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada

IND XI: Virat Kohli(c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal.

 

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Toss report

South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis won the toss and elected to bat first at the beautiful Kingsmead Ground in Durban.

India will look to the shed their poor record against Proteas at this particular venue. They have lost 6 of their 7 matches and 1 ending in a draw.

Virat Kohli returns to the ODI squad after missing the entire limited-overs series against Sri Lanka. He will replace young Shreyas Iyer in the playing XI.

The debate over India’s No.4 spot in the batting order seems to be over after Virat Kohli backed Ajinkya Rahane to take the responsibility. The 28-year-old will come in for Dinesh Karthik.

South Africa, on the other hand, will miss the services of dynamic AB de Villiers, who misses out of the first three One-day international due to a finger injury.

Aiden Markram is all set to start for the hosts in AB de Villiers’ absence.

 

Preview

After a hard-fought Test series between South Africa and India, the focus now shifts to the six-match ODI-rubber, the first of which will be staged at the Kingsmead ground in Durban on Thursday.

The visitors have included eight new players to their ODI squad as former skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Manish Pandey, Shreyas Iyer, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Shardul Thakur and Kedar Jadhav are the new addition for the high-voltage SA tour.

With only 14 months to go for the 2019 ODI World Cup, India will also look to kick off their preparations in earnest during the series.

India have a long limited-overs' schedule until their next big Test assignment -- the five-Test rubber against England in August.

After the conclusion of South Africa, India will travel to Sri Lanka for a Tri-nation T20 series which also includes Bangladesh. The series is organized to mark 70th year of Sri Lankan independence.

With so much of limited-overs' cricket to be played in overseas conditions, especially South Africa and England, this will allow the Indian team management to try out the various combinations and fix up certain spots before the quadrennial tournament in England next year.

Speaking of this series, the Men in Blue to try to better their limited-over record against Proteas and win their first ever bilateral series on South Africa soil.

Going into Thursday's tie, India is not expected to make any drastic changes with Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan opening the batting and followed by the likes of Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer and Dhoni.

It will be interesting to see who among the likes of Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik gets a look-in lower down the order even as the bowling department looks set to be led by Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah.

The hosts, on the other hand, will miss services of veteran batsman AB de Villiers, who is set to miss first three encounters due to a finger injury.