LIVE: India win the toss, bat in second ODI against South Africa

India captain KL Rahul won the toss and elected to bat in the second ODI against South Africa at Boland Park in Paarl on Friday, 21 January.

It is a scorching hot day in the Western Cape Winelands and the decision to bat first is a no-brainer.

Rahul bats

Rahul said: “It’s pretty straightforward. Second game on the same strip so it’s important for us to put runs on the board. We’re guessing and hoping the wicket will get slow later on.[on the first game loss] We didn’t do it too wrong, but the middle overs with bat and ball – we couldn’t get wickets and we couldn’t get partnerships going. Virat and Shikhar batted really well, set the tempo for us. One more partnership we would have probably got home. We did speak about it, and the batters realised where we went wrong. Nobody wants to do it on purpose, everyone tried really hard. We’ve learned from it and spoken about it. Same team.”

ESPN Cricinfo

India have named an unchanged playing XI for the match despite slumping to defeat in the series opener.

The Proteas make one change to their XI with Marco Jansen making way for allrounder Sisanda Magala.

After the toss Proteas skipper Temba Bavuma said he would also have batted first.

“We probably would have wanted to bat first.

“Like KL said it’s quite straightforward. Saying that, I think there will be an opportunity where in the first hour with the ball nipping a bit. 

“We got ourselves in a bit of a pickle losing wickets up front but the big partnership between Rassie and I got us going. 

“Bowling was 80-85% on. We want to get even better from the last game, try to improve those five percenters. We’d like to seal the series now, but in saying that we’re going to have to do the basics well. One change, Sisanda Magala. comes in for Marco Jansen. Marco’s had a big workload, so we felt he was a bit flat in the first game. We’ve got full confidence in Magala.”

Teams: South Africa vs India

India: 1 KL Rahul (capt), 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Venkatesh Iyer, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal

South Africa: 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Janneman Malan, 3 Temba Bavuma (capt), 4 Aiden Markram, 5 Rassie van der Dussen, 6 David Miller, 7 Andile Phehlulwayo, 8 Keshav Maharaj, 9 Sisanda Magala, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Tabraiz Shamsi