In the second Test against South Africa Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat first. The match is going on at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Thursday.
Virat Kohli Explains reason Behind replacing Umesh Yadav with Hanuma Vihari
In this match there nothing much changed expect for one thing that Umesh Yadav has been replaced with Hanuma Vihari in India’s playing XI.
Clarifying the reason behind the change, the India captain said an extra batsman is going to be a luxury here and therefore “Hanuman Vihari misses out, Umesh Yadav replaces him”. “The surface is a bit hard here (hence) still keeping a fifth attacking option to back Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami. Just strengthening our bowling all round,” said Kohli.
South Africa, on the other hand had also added an extra pacer, offering a debut to their express Anrich Nortje by replacing the off-spinner Dane Piedt.
Kohli after winning the toss said, “It’s a good to win the toss and bat first, the wicket is probably best for batting on the first day and half, it eventually turns from day 2 and 3,”
India were expected to go with an additional bowler keeping in mind that their batting has been doing pretty well as well as the heavy workload is now on the bowlers in the subcontinent.
Faf’s luck seems to be not giving any kind of help as today also hi loss the toss, which makes straight loss of nine tosses in the subcontinent.
Faf Du Plessis said, “It was more disappointing to lose the toss in the last Test. There is a bit of grass on this morning, but I was asking Virat to teach me the sleight of hand trick to win tosses in India. You can almost take Day 4 and 5 out of the equation if we bowl really well in the first innings. We’re bringing in Nortje for Piedt, so just a bit of extra pace, and a three-seam attack.”
India, on the other hand, have won four of their last five Tests, South Africa at the same time have lost their last three Tests. India had also won the first Test at Visakhapatnam by 203 runs.
Teams XI:
India XI: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Mayank Agarwal, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (capt), Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 7 R Ashwin, 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Ishant Sharma, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Umesh Yadav.
South Africa XI: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Dean Elgar, 3 Theunis de Bruyn, 4 Temba Bavuma, 5 Faf du Plessis (capt), 6 Quinton de Kock (wk), 7 Senuran Muthusamy, 8 Vernon Philander, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Kagiso Rabada, 11 Anrich Nortje.
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