India vs South Africa, T20 World Cup 2022 highlights: IND lose top spot in Group 1 after 5-wicket defeat to SA

Temba Bavuma (c), Quinton de Kock (w), Rilee Roussouw, Tristan Stubbs, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi

Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh

One change to the team, says Rohit Sharma. Axar Patel misses out and Deepak Hooda comes in. 

With Pakistan's game against the Netherlands getting over on time, there is no delay in the toss. Rohit Sharma and Temba Bavuma are already out in the middle and we are seconds away from that coin taking flight. 

The 33-year-old did not get to bat in the first match. No worries, he made up for that by becoming the first batter to score a century in this T20 World Cup.  He hit 109 runs in 56 balls against Bangladesh, smacking seven fours and eight sixes in the innings.

Pakistan have beaten the Netherlands by six wickets but it was hardly an easy ride for them. They had to chase down just 92 but they could never get any tempo going. They ended up losing four wickets and it took them almost 14 overs to get there. That is not the kind of NRR boosting win they would have been searching for. 

Virat Kohli seems to have risen again and that, coupled with Suryakumar Yadav's blazing form, has done wonders for India. Kohli is now 28 runs away from surpassing Mahela Jayawardene as the highest run scorer of all time in T20 World Cup history. 

Rohit Sharma (c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh

There are few cases more bewildering in this tournament than that of Temba Bavuma. He is the captain of the South African T20 team, a position held by the likes of AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis in the past, and yet his career stats in the format are 569 runs in 29 innings at a strike rate of 115.41 and average of 22.76. This year, he has scored 68 runs in a whopping nine innings at a strike rate of 79.06. In this tournament, he has scored a total of four runs, falling for two off six balls against Bangladesh. All this is while he is opening the innings and keeping out the in-form Reeza Hendricks from the team. Bavuma has always come accross as a level-headed, fair man in his interviews, but it is hard to ignore the fact that he would be nowhere close to getting into this team had he not been captain. 

Rahul has been a paradox. On his day, he can score 40-ball centuries and yet, his day arrives so rarely, some believe they don't even exist any more in T20Is. He is the only Indian batter to have not been able to make a mark yet in this tournament. Anil Kumble, who spent many painful seasons working closely with Rahul as Punjab Kings head coach in the IPL, said it best: I think he sort of switches on and switches for whatever reason. We saw in his last game for Punjab against Chennai where we had to get those runs and have a crack at the net run rate, we saw what he can do. He just smashed everyone and Chennai had some good international bowlers. “So it is just a matter of Rahul switching on. It is not about any conversation any of us can have, it is just about him feeling that today is when I will start hitting shots or be tentative. We don't know.

India currently top Group 2 on the basis of their net run rate, tied on four points with second-placed Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh have played three games while third-placed South Africa have got three points in two games. This would mean that a win for South Africa today would help the Proteas jump to the top spot and push India down to second. Bangladesh will be third. Where does Pakistan come in all this? Well, Pakistan are on their way to recording their first win of this tournament as we speak which means they will now get to two points and they need South Africa to lose today to stand a chance at sneaking into the top 2. That is where we will leave it for now, going into the details might mean whipping out our algebra calculators out and summonning Einstein's theory of relativity, among other things

South Africa had done all they could in their first match against Zimbabwe. When the match was reduced to a nine-overs a side affair, they restricted Zimbabwe to 79/5. They then smashed 51 runs in three overs before the umpires dragged the players off the field due to rain. The game was eventually abandoned and because five overs could not be played in the South African innings, it was declared as a no-result, thus costing South Africa two points that they were more or less assured of.  

They kept their heads down and ignored that bit of misfortune, smacking 205/5 against Bangladesh batting first in the next match. The total came largely thanks to Rilee Rossouw's 109 off 56 balls and his 168-run stand for the second wicket with Quinton de Kock. Anrich Nortje then took over, recording figures of 4/10 as Bangladesh were blown away for 101 runs and South Africa took home a mammoth 104-run win.

India have been one of the luckier teams in the Super 12 stage in the way that they haven't had a match washed out. That was expected before their opening match against Pakistan at the MCG but on the day of the game, the clouds cleared and allowed one of the greatest T20 matches of all time unfold. Virat Kohli's innings of a lifetime helped India seal a four-wicket win off the last ball of the match. Their second match was quite a different one. It was against the Netherlands and India were ruthless in their execution, winning by 56 runs. 

India's last bilateral series before the T20 World Cup was at home against South Africa. The series ended up being a 2-2 draw and South Africa thus maintained their unbeaten record in India. They started off by chasing down a target of 212 with five balls to spare and then won the next one by four wickets with nearly two overs to spare. India stopped the spiral, coming back strongly in the third and fourth T20Is but the last match was washed out.

Quinton de Kock(w), Temba Bavuma(c), Rilee Rossouw, Aiden Markram, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Wayne Parnell, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Tabraiz Shamsi, Lungi Ngidi, Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen, Reeza Hendricks

Rohit Sharma(c), KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik(w), Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Rishabh Pant, Deepak Hooda, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal

As far as tasty match-ups go, this one is a seven-course meal. There is India's batting lineup against that scary South African fast bowling unit. Then there is India's own fairly efficient unit against the South African batting lineup that has been firing on all cylinders thus far in this tournament. Both are good fielding sides, with South Africa arguably edging it there. It will be a game of fine margins and high quality. Let's sink our teeth into it.