In the South Africa tour of India, the first T20I of the five-match bilateral series will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi on Thursday, June 9 at 7 PM IST.
The hosts will head into their first international fixture after the Indian Premier League (IPL) without their marquee players. The full-time skipper Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah have been given rest ahead of the critical overseas tour. KL Rahul was announced the skipper but the batsman suffered an injury on Wednesday evening and has been ruled out from the entire series. Rishabh Pant has been named the new captain with Hardik Pandya as its deputy. Just a few months ahead of the T20 World Cup 2022, several Indian players would want to perform well in the series and be on the flight to Australia.
On the other end, the visitors will walk into this series with confidence as the full-fledged South African unit takes on the injury-hit Indian team. With the likes of Quinton de Kock, Aiden Markram and Kagiso Rabada, who have done extremely well in the recently concluded IPL, the tourists seem like a force to reckon with. The Proteas will also look to gain momentum ahead of the much anticipated T20 World Cup.
Head-to-head:
In the head-to-head competition between the two teams, the hosts have the upper hand. The two teams collided on 15 occasions, the home team won nine games while the tourists emerged victorious on six instances.
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