🏏SA vs India, 3rd T20I: At New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg 🏏

🏏SA vs India, 3rd T20I: At New Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg on 14/12/2023 at 8:30PM IST🏏

India and South Africa prep for T20I series decider

Chances of a full game are high and Johannesburg typically has plenty for batters and fast bowlersIndia, SA and their T20 World Cup gains

And just like that, both teams best chance for T20 World Cup preparation on the international stage will come to an end, two days after it began. What's been gleaned so far? Only as much as we could from 19.3 overs of India's batting and 13.5 of South Africa's, and which we can briefly summarise as this:

• Suryakumar Yadav and his shots over the wicketkeeper are among the most entertaining things in T20 cricket.
• Reeza Hendricks must open the batting for South Africa at the next T20 World Cup, irrespective of who his opening partner is.
• Tabraiz Shamsi has matured into a T20 banker, and
• Rinku Singh is winning the race as India's finisher so far.

That's not too bad for a series where the first match was washed out entirely and the second rain-affected.

It also means we've yet to see a full T20 game and the big hope is that the Wanderers delivers one. Even if it does, neither side is at full strength and South Africa have reduced their stocks even further by releasing Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee to play in the domestic four-day game in preparation for the Tests later in the tour and will field an inexperienced pace attack. India are also without a key player as Deepak Chahar has remained at home for personal reasons. Both sets of seamers struggled for consistency in damp conditions at St George's Park and will want to get their disciplines right in the decider. They need look no further than Mohammed Siraj, whose lines were exemplary, as an example.

While the spinners were all impressive in Gqeberha, they are unlikely to find much assistance in Johannesburg and could end up being the main targets for batting line-ups that both have headline acts. Hendricks' run of form sees him average 51.50 from his last 12 T20Is while Suryakumar and Rinku give India a powerful middle-order combination. All three of them might have the T20 World Cup in the back of their minds but India's stand-in captain, for his part, isn't saying so.

"Go out and enjoy yourself," has been his message to his players and with Thursday being the eve of the public holiday South Africa have declared to celebrate the Springboks Rugby World Cup win, who would dare to argue?

India vs South Africa Pitch Report

The average score at the venue is 145, indicating that the forthcoming encounter might not be a high scoring one. The toss winning skipper is likely to opt to field first.

India vs South Africa Weather Report

There is a chance of heavy rain throughout the match. Clouds will be present and playing conditions will be gloomy. It should not spring a surprise if the match gets called off. Temperatures will be around 17 degrees Celsius.

Pitch and conditions: Clear(ish) skies and a great game in the offing

The news everyone wants to hear is that the drizzle has drifted away and they're mostly in luck. Thursday's forecast for Johannesburg is clear for the late afternoon with only a 25% chance of evening thunderstorms. That means the chances of a full match are pretty good and the prospect of entertainment, even better.

At altitude, expect the ball to reach the boundary quicker but with good pace and bounce, there should be plenty for the quicks as well.

In the spotlight: Matthew Breetzke and Yashasvi Jaiswal

In a truncated chase on Tuesday night, Matthew Breetzke was off to a sparkling start with 16 off 7 balls and showed good energy at the crease - almost too good. He was hasty in turning for a second run with his opening partner Hendricks still to leave the non-striker's end and was visibly furious with himself when he was run out, squandering an opportunity to anchor a chase. He has one more chance to make a solid case for a more regular role at the Wanderers, where he will open for the final time in international cricket this year. Breetzke is not part of the ODI squad.

In the other camp, Yashasvi Jaiswal's immense talent was limited to three balls in the opening match but he will be eager to show more of what he can do. With a reputation for aggression made perfectly clear by an eye-popping strike rate - 161.57 from his 14 T20Is so far - Jaiswal's next challenge is to test it in South African conditions. Although he won't be facing South Africa's first-choice attack, there will still be plenty of pace, bounce and movement on offer and how he counters could make for an interesting contest.

Stats and trivia: Runs, runs and more runs

• Hendricks is South Africa's leading run-scorer in T20I cricket this year, with 108 runs more than his nearest competitor, Aiden Markram.
• For India, Suryakumar leads the batting charts, and has 363 runs more than the next highest run-scorer Jaiswal. Suryakumar also broke into the all-time top 10 six-hitters' list in T20Is after Tuesday match. He has 115 sixes to his name.
• The Highveld has been spectacular for T20I run-scoring this year. In March, Centurion's SuperSport Park hosted the game with the highest match aggregate - 517 - between South Africa and West Indies. And two days later, the Wanderers saw the 16th highest match aggregate of 433 reached in a thriller between the same two sides.

Team news: New faces for South Africa?

With Jansen and Coetzee out, South Africa may find place for one, or both, of Nandre Burger and Ottniel Baartman to debut. Burger may edge ahead as he offers extra pace. Donovan Ferreira could also find his way into the XI, as an extra allrounder.

At least it shouldn't rain at the Wanderers on Thursday. Considering the first match of this men's T20I series, at Kingsmead on Sunday, was lost in its entirety because of the weather and Tuesday's game at St George's Park was curtailed after the skies leaked again, that's no small thing.

Cricketminded fans of the electrical thunderstorms that grace the Highveld during South Africa's summers - and there are many - would concede that the match must take precedence over even the epic show the weather puts on in Johannesburg. With both teams playing only four more T20Is before the World Cup in the format in the Caribbean and the United States in June, they need all the gametime they can get.

Many of the players involved will turn out for a host of T20 franchises before the World Cup, but nothing polishes on-field and dressingroom dynamics like playing together. It's what turns collections of cricketers into teams who win tournaments.

On the admittedly scant evidence of the Tuesday, when South Africa won by five wickets with seven balls to spare, the home side are tightening those nuts and bolts better than the visitors. Neither side handed down a masterclass in a match that was messy from start to finish, but one of them found ways to win while the other lost their way.

Maybe India are still getting over last month's rude awakening at the ODI World Cup, which around 1.4-billion people seemed convinced they had some divine right to win. Until they didn't and Australia did, because sport doesn't work that way.

The South Africans haven't had to face that challenge: no-one expected them to come home with the World Cup. Indeed they performed better than anticipated to reach the semis.

That's not to read too much into the last game of a rubber India can no longer win. Besides, they have claimed only two of the 15 bilateral series they have played in South Africa across the formats. But one of those was a T20I series, in February 2018.

Gerald Coetzee, South Africa's most successful bowler on Tuesday with a haul of 3/32, has been taken out of the mix (see below) and Tabraiz Shamsi, whose Gqeberha economy rate of 4.50 was easily the best in both attacks, might be less effective on a Wanderers pitch.

So, theoretically, the Indians have a better chance of winning than on Tuesday. Also, the Wanderers is the only regularly used international ground in South Africa where India haven't lost more matches than they've won. They're level at 5-5 in Joburg.

But the South Africans know how to win at the Wanderers, where they have been victorious in 65.98% of their matches, regardless of format, in which a positive result has been reached. Only in Centurion are they more successful on that score, and just 0.29% more.

For all its reputation as a fast bowler's venue the Wanderers is a good place to bat, especially in white-ball cricket. So will Suryakumar Yadav celebrate retaining the top spot in the T20I batting rankings with an innings as bristling with aggression as his 36-ball 56 on Tuesday? Will Rinku Singh convert his unbeaten 68 off 39 in the same match into something bigger? Or will potential debutants Nandre Burger and Ottniel Baartman (again, see below) deny them by announcing themselves in style?

As always before a match, questions hang in the air like rain clouds. That's better for cricket, of course, than real rain clouds hanging in the air.

Thanks for the tag Raji... 

Also, thanks Prizi and Soni for your updates during every match. Helps me keep track since I'm unable to watch it fully due to renovations happening at home.

When: December 14, 2023; 5pm Local Time (8.30pm IST)

Where: The Wanderers, Johannesburg

What to expect: A willing pitch, a small, fast outfield, and little chance, according to the forecast, of rain.

Team news:

South Africa:

As per the squad announcement, Marco Jansen and Gerald Coetzee won't be available for this match to enable them to prepare for the coming Test series. That could mean debuts for Nandre Burger and Ottniel Baartman.

Possible XI: Reeza Hendricks, Matthew Breetzke, Aiden Markram (capt), Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Andile Phehlukwayo, Nandre Burger, Lizaad Williams, Tabraiz Shamsi, Ottniel Baartman

India:

Shubman Gill might make way for Ruturaj Gaikwad, who didn't play on Tuesday due to illness. Ravi Bishnoi looks set to crack the nod ahead of Kuldeep Yadav.

Possible XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar

What they said:

"Nobody knows who is going to the World Cup, and the way this new Proteas team is approaching things we don't look too far ahead. At the moment our focus is on the Wanderers." - Tabraiz Shamsi keeps his eye on the ball.

"It's always good to play in South Africa; it's quite challenging. We are well-prepared for these conditions, and we have actually batted well in a tough situation." - Tilak Varma has faith in India's ability to play out of their comfort zone.