India vs South Africa, 1st T20I: Toss, Playing 11 Update, Pitch Report, Pre-Match Comments

New Delhi, June 9: India are facing South Africa in the first T20I of the five-match series at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday (June 9) with both the protagonists eyeing an early lead in the rubber.

India will be without the services of KL Rahul, who was named captain originally, and chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav, as both of them were ruled out of the entire series with injuries.

Rishabh Pant will lead the side in the absence of Rahul while South Africa have no such worries as yet.

Here we are bringing you details of the first India vs South Africa T20I such as toss update, pitch report, playing 11 details and players pre-match comments.

Toss: SA won, elected to field.

Playing 11

India: Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant(Captain / WK), Hardik Pandya, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Avesh Khan.

South Africa: Quinton de Kock(w), Temba Bavuma(c), Reeza Hendricks, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Keshav Maharaj, Tabraiz Shamsi, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje.

Captains’ comments

Temba Bavuma, SA Captain: “We are going to have a bowl first. We played a practice game here a couple of days ago, so that the wicket got better to bat on. It was a bit slow and stoppy at the beginning, hopefully we can exploit that and restrict them to a decent score and chase it down. Aiden (Markram) was not available for selection as he tested positive for Covid, (Tristan) Stubbs comes and it is a debut for him. We have two all rounders; Dwaine and Parnell also come into the fold.”

Rishabh Pant, India Captain: “I think it is a good surface and don't mind batting first. But if I had won the toss I would have bowled first. It is one of the proudest moment in my cricketing career so far. Because a Delhi boy getting that (captaincy) honour at Delhi is a huge thing for me. Thanks to everyone for giving me this opportunity. We know our XI but at the same time we are giving different roles to players and see how they cope with that going forward.”

Pitch report

Deep Dasgupta to Star Sports: “The last international game played here was way back in 2019, but in 2021 four IPL games were played here and all were high scoring, 195 was the average score then. The dimensions are small here; only 61 meters on the western side and 63 on the eastern, straight down is 74. It looks like it has a bit of grass which is dry.

“It is a little patchy but the surface itself is quite firm. You can see the cracks here which might help the spinners but still seems a high scoring match. Dew is not a factor.”