Watch South Africa v India Icc World Cup T20

India and South Africa will meet in a dead rubber Super Eights game at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. India has already crashed out of the tournament following two successive losses in the second stage, while South Africa is through to the semi-finals. With not much at stake except pride for India, they may want to experiment a little, but that will more be in the form of shuffling the batting and bowling order than personnel changes given that M.S.Dhoni may want to continue with the guys taken in for the previous game.

With India already out of the tournament, it may just be a trifle difficult for them to be able to concentrate on the game, but Dhoni would want to win this before flying out of the country. South Africa, on the other hand, will need to carry forward the momentum into the knockout given their penchant to choke at wrong times and end up bowing out of big tournaments.

Ravindra Jadeja’s experiment at number four was a definite no-no, and one may see Yuvraj Singh bat at that position. But more worrying for Dhoni will be the form of his top three batsmen, with Rohit Sharma having lost his touch after the brief period of renaissance and Suresh Raina finding life handling the short ball very difficult on pitches that afford a little extra for the bowlers.

The bowling looks decent, especially when the spinners come on, but Zaheer Khan’s lack of match fitness will be closely monitored. Ishant Sharma had a bad day against the English, and with Zaheer having the ability to reverse the ball – and it certainly is reversing – it could be a good idea to start with Ishant and R.P.Singh instead. However, with Praveen Kumar waiting in the ranks, it could just be a good time to rest Ishant and get him in.

South Africa has a set opening combination and a brilliant number three, which means that they will want to concentrate on their numbers four and five – J.P.Duminy and A.B. de Villiers – who havent had a lot to write home about in tournament. Both had come into the World T20 with a purple patch going for them in the IPL, and if they could turn things around for them, the South African batting could be one of the best in the business.

The bowling looks good for South Africa without looking too flashy. However, the best performances have been coming from a virtual greenhorn in Wayne Parnell and it would be interesting to see how the quick, pacy bowling of Parnell is handled by the Indians. The Johan Botha-Indian batsmen contest will be an interesting one as well, and one that the Indians would want to win.

Teams:

South Africa (From): Herschelle Gibbs, Graeme Smith(c), AB de Villiers, Jean-Paul Duminy, Mark Boucher(w), Albie Morkel, Roelof van der Merwe, Johan Botha, Morne Morkel, Wayne Parnell, Dale Steyn, Yusuf Abdullah, Jacques Kallis, Justin Lee Ontong, Robin Peterson

India (From): Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni(w/c), Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Pragyan Ojha, Ishant Sharma, Rudra Pratap Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Praveen Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja