South Africa captain Temba Bavuma won the toss yet again and opted to bat first in the second Test in Guwahati on Saturday, November 22. The Proteas lead the series 1-0 and India desperately need to win the second Test to level the series.
The coin fell in the opposition’s favour yet again as Indian captains can’t seem to win a toss, whether it was Suryakumar Yadav, Shubman Gill or now Rishabh Pant, in his Test captaincy debut for India. South Africa’s Temba Bavuma called heads and it was heads. As expected, he opted to bat first in the inaugural Test at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati on Saturday, November 22. Bavuma reckoned that the wicket looked “a lot better” and hence, his counterpart, Pant, also wanted to bat first.
“A lot more consistent (grass), no cracks really. Probably expected to play well the first two days,” Bavuma said of the pitch. The surface for the first Test in Kolkata came under a lot of scrutiny because of its uneven bounce and the match eventually finished off in just eight sessions. However, it looked a lot better on the opening day of the first-ever Test match in Guwahati, with a tinge of grass there and dryness underneath and hopefully, the batters will get helpful conditions at the start of it.
Pant, however, was happy to bowl first, hoping that there would be some assistance for the bowlers early on, since it’s a 9 AM IST start. India made a couple of changes, with Gill ruled out of the second Test. Pant stood in for him as the captain, while Dhruv Jurel took the No 4 spot in the batting order. Nitish Kumar Reddy came back into the side in his place, while Sai Sudharsan replaced Axar Patel as a proper batter, to maintain the left-hand right-hand combination.
South Africa, on the other hand, also made one change, bringing in left-arm spinner all-rounder Senuran Muthusamy in place of Corbin Bosch, adding to already a couple of spinners in the line-up.
Playing XIs
India: KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel, Rishabh Pant(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
South Africa: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma(c), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne(w), Marco Jansen, Senuran Muthusamy, Simon Harmer, Keshav Maharaj