ICC World Cup 2019 preview: India vs wounded SA

After five days and seven matches into the tournament, India’s World Cup campaign will finally roll on when they take on an embattled South Africa here at the Ageas Bowl on Wednesday.

While India begin with a little bit of trepidation since it’s their first match, South Africa – deflated by two defeats and ravaged by injuries to key players – start low on morale.

It’s an unfamiliar situation for the Proteas who have generally dominated the event before bungling in knockout matches much against the run of play. They started with a big loss to tournament favourites England and followed it up with a shock defeat at the hands of Bangladesh in another high-scoring game. While batting has been a bit up and down for South Africa, it’s their bowling that has let them down badly.

The experienced Dale Steyn never recovered from the shoulder injury before he was ruled out of the event on Wednesday following a fitness test on Tuesday. Lungi Ngidi has sustained a grade one muscle strain in his left hamstring and Steyn’s replacement Beuran Hendricks is joining the team only on Wednesday which means South Africa have just 13 players to pick from their playing 11 against India.

Thin on pace-bowling resources and low in confidence level, it’s bound to put more pressure on other players. Paceman Kagiso Rabada is the sole quality quick in their ranks at the moment and Faf du Plessis has a tough task of tweaking the players to arrive at a balanced side. In a tournament as important as this it can be an unnerving situation for any team. But then South Africa are a team with pedigree and one can take them lightly at one’s own peril.

There are enough wise heads in the Indian team to ensure that the players don’t remain complacent. Having watched five days of action, Virat Kohli sounded relieved to be eventually getting a game under his belt but the merits of playing late in the tournament weren’t lost on the Indian skipper. You get an idea of the pattern of results, what the general condition of the pitch and weather has been and what works out best for the team.

But this theorisation has a limited role to play in the team’s success. It all eventually boils down to how well you execute those plans. Unlike the pre-tournament prediction of high-scoring contests, the event has seen mixed kinds of matches. Some have seen over 600 runs being amassed by either innings combined while a few others have been low-scoring affairs. It’s this unpredictability that will keep the teams on their toes and make team selection a complicated exercise.

Rain worries

On Tuesday, India’s optional practice session was cancelled due to persistent drizzle but on the match day, the forecast indicates no possibility of rain. It is, however, going to remain mostly cloudy through the day and that would majorly dictate the combination of the team that India will pick.

With two new balls and cloud cover, pacers can be impactful even on a good batting surface. So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if Kohli opts for two seamers and two pace-bowling all-rounders in Hardik Pandya and Vijay Shankar.

In that case, it remains to be seen if India will play both Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal or pick left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja, who was impressive with both and ball in two warm-up matches, instead of two wrist spinners. Kohli declared that Kedar Jadhav has regained full fitness and he will be tempted to slot him in given the variety he brings to the table with his all-round skills. With their No 4 batsmen identified in K L Rahul, India’s batting has a settled look now with batsmen from 5-7 likely to be floaters.

While India have a problem of plenty, South Africa have plenty of problems at hand to solve. You ought to feel for the situation they find themselves in but rest assured India will show little mercy.