1st ODI Predictions: India vs South Africa

India will clash with South Africa in the first T20I of the five-match series at the Arun Jaitely Stadium on Thursday.

The series will start on 9th June 2022 and end on 19th June 2022.

Delhi will host the 1st T20 match.

Indian team

The Indian team will be devoid of many seniors like  Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah who have been rested.

KL Rahul will lead the side in the absence of Rohit Sharma.

Rishabh Pant has been appointed vice-captain for the series.

The best performers of IPL 2022 have been rewarded with selections.

Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Umran Malik, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Ravi Bishnoi and Avesh Khan form part of the squad after their sterling displays in the IPL.

At the same, many non-performers in the IPL have been ditched. Varun Chakravarthy, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli had a mediocre tournament and as a result, they are not in the team.

South Africa Team

Temba Bavuma will lead the South African side for the series.

South Africa has a very good squad with proven T20 performers.

Most of their players are in form including Quinton De Kock and David Miller.

Kagiso Rabada was also hitting the right strides in the IPL and will be in good nick.

The return of Anrich Nortje will be a useful addition to the pace attack as he is capable of bowling above 150 kmph.

Quinton de Kock is one player the Proteas will depend on as he is very familiar with Indain conditions and was outstanding in IPL 2022 as well.

Besides, de Kock was the player of the series in the  last T20 series in 2019-2020.

Head to Head series record

This is the 7th T20 series between the teams.

India has won 3 bilateral series whereas SA has won on two occasions.

One series between the sides ended in a tie.

India Likely Playing 11

1. KL Rahul (Captain), 2. Ishan Kishan, 3. Shreyas Iyer, 4. Rishabh Pant (wk), 5. Dinesh Karthik, 6. Hardik Pandya, 7. Axar Patel, 8. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9. Harshal Patel, 10. Yuzvendra Chahal, 11. Umran Malik / Avesh Khan.

South Africa Likely Playing 11

1. Quinton de Kock (wk), 2. Reeza Hendricks, 3. Rassie van der Dussen, 4. Aiden Markram, 5. Temba Bavuma (Captain), 6. David Miller, 7. Dwaine Pretorious, 8. Kagiso Rabada, 9. Keshav Maharaj, 10. Tabraiz Shamsi, 11. Anrich Nortje.

Key Impact Player for India

KL Rahul is possibly the best and most consistent T20 player in the world.

He will be the key player for India.

Till now, he has scored 1831 runs at an average of 40.69 with a strike rate of 142.49.

Moreover, he already has 2 hundred in T20s.

These are outstanding stats.

Key Impact Player for South Africa

David Miller’s talent has never been in doubt.

When he gets going, he is one of the most explosive batters in the world.

Currently, he is brimming with confidence after his exploits with Gujarat Titans.

He has scored 1786 runs for SA and has the highest score of 101 not out in the T20 format.

Who will win

India and South Africa are strong T20 teams.

They are quite even in terms of batting and bowling firepower.

However, India has two advantages.

It has a superior spin attack.

Two, it boasts of the home advantage.

For this reason, our prediction is India will win.