The battle of champion Test sides begin on thursday and there are clear favorites for this battle. Being an Indian fan, I would always gun for India. The reason being this is the best chance for India to win a series in SA for first time ever in the cricketing history. Last time India came close to do so, but Lord Harris strangled India and later Kallis bhia took the initiative and won the Captown test by 6 wkts for his side to win the series 2-1.
This time around there are lot of changed personnel in Indian side.
- First ever tour to SA with no Kumble. He was part of tours in 1992, 1996 and 2006. He was injured in 2001.
- India for first time has a settled and the best opening pair in the current scnearion in the Test cricket.
- Sehwag is in imperious form in Tests and he seems to be all set to erase the painful memories of 2007 tour when he was dropped following a horrible Test tour. He had made 48 in the middle order and had seen BossaDK promoted to the top along side Wasim Jaffer.
- Sachin Tendulkar would be keen to make his 50th 100 in Tests and move further close to the magical 100 100s mark.
- VVS Laxman would look forward to conquer SA too, something which he has not done in previous 3 tours.
- Zaheer Khan would be the trump to win a test in SA. If he is not around, as cricinfo suggests he is having injury concerns, then India would have hard task to take 20 wickets to win the tests.
- There would be no Ganguly at 5 or 6 to conquer the demons and it would be either Raina or Pujara who would take the guard at 6.
- Most probably the start up attack would be Zaheer, Sreesanth, Ishant and Harbhajan.
- Sreesanth is back to the land where he had got himself reckoned into the mainstream Indian bowling after stellar performance in Jo'burg which India won.
On the other hand SA is also a very high quality side in their own home turf.
They have deep batting line up till 8 and the presence of Kallis allows them to play 5 bowlers. The form of Amla would be tested against the Indians, whom he has developed a special liking.
Dale Steyn, as usual would be the most dangerous threat and if Sehwag is able to contain the man, the remaining bowlers would not be so tough to handle given the fact that the 3rd seamer would be inexperienced in Tsotobe.
The start of the Test would be a good attention seeker from the Ashes hype which has just maddened the old cricket world as if the rest of the cricketing countries do not exist.
Possible teams:
India : 1. Sehwag 2. Gambhir 3. Dravid 4. Tendulkar 5. Laxman 6. Raina 7. Dhoni 8. Harbhajan 9. Zaheer 10. Sreesanth 11. Ishant
South Africa : 1. A Pieterson 2. Smith 3. Amla 4. Kallis 5. AB 6. Prince 7. Boucher 8. Morkel 9. Steyn 10. Harris 11. Tsotobe
India 2 SA 1.
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