India Will face South Africa in the second match of the two-match Test series. This article provides details about the playing 11 of India vs South Africa for the second match of the series.
India’s playing XI vs South Africa – 2nd Test, South Africa tour of India 2025:
Openers: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul
When India face South Africa in the final match of the ongoing two-match Test series, they will have no option but to win if they want to avoid their second series defeat in the last three matches at home.
The host team will be disappointed with the way their batting lineup performed in the last match and will want to do everything right in the upcoming match.
A major concern for the team going into the second Test will be the fitness of Shuman Gill, who had to retire after playing just a few balls in the first innings of the last match and did not take part in the rest of the game.
If Shubman is unable to recover in time for the next game, then wicketkeeper batsman and vice captain Rishabh Pant will take over the responsibility of captaincy.
Gill’s absence will also mean that the team management will have to make changes to the batting lineup, with Sai Sudarshan replacing the captain.
Having said that, the hosts will be hoping that Gill recovers in time for the series decider as, considering the form of the top seven batsmen, his absence will be a major blow to India’s chances of winning the match.
Otherwise the home team is expected to field with an unchanged batting lineup, with KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal opening the batting.
Both the batsmen individually and as a pair will have to take the responsibility of giving good starts to tea and making things easier for the middle order, which was not the case in the initial match.
Middle-order batsmen and all-rounders: Sai Sudarshan, Washington Sundar, Rishabh Pant (captain and wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Nitish Kumar Reddy.
As far as India’s middle-order composition is concerned, it depends on Rishabh Pant as he is one of the most experienced batsmen in the top five, and with the unavailability of Gill, the responsibility on Pant increases manifold.
It will be interesting to see whether the team management favors Washington Sundar, who batted at that particular position in the opening match of the series and looked good before getting out, or includes Sai Sudarshan, who played the role in the previous series.
The batting lineup will have a good chance of posting a big score on the board if the top four batsmen work with the depth in the team’s batting lineup, which includes two keepers, Pant and Jurel and several all-rounders like Jadeja and Nitish.
However, a lot will depend on how the pitch behaves, as there is no hiding the fact that the batsmen have struggled to score runs on the spin-friendly track.
After which, a big question arises: will India stick to its plan of playing on such a track, given the backfire it had in Kolkata, or will it lose a sporting wicket for the final game of the series?
Bowlers: Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah
After the crushing defeat in the last match, like the batting, the team’s bowling is also searching for answers.
One of those questions is whether India’s combination of going with four spinners in Kolkata was right or whether the home team played one spinner too much, given that Washington Sundar hardly bowled in the match.
If we look at the last few Test matches since Gautam Gambhir became the coach of India, Washington has been favored a lot but he has not been given enough opportunities to showcase his skills with the ball.
If the team management decides to stick with the same bowling attack with Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel as the other three spinners, it might be a wise thing to do to give them more chances to have their say on the ball.
The team’s fast bowling department will be handled by Jasprit Bumrah, who was the best bowler in the first innings with five wickets, and Mohammed Siraj, who clean bowled the tail-enders in the second innings.
