IND vs SA 1st Test: Virat Kohli wins toss and opts to bat first, Ajinkya Rahane in, no place for Shreyas Iyer, Vihari

Skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bat in the first Test at the SuperSport Park in Centurion. The victory in this series will impact the points both sides need for the World Test Championship (WTC).

As far as the teams are concerned, Siraj, Shami, Bumrah, Ashwin and Thakur is the all-rounder for India. For Proteas, debutant Marco Jansen gets a place. Mulder as all-rounder. Kesh is our spinner. KG, Lungi and Marco are the pacers.

Teams:

South Africa (Playing XI): Dean Elgar(c), Aiden Markram, Keegan Petersen, Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock(w), Wiaan Mulder, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi

India (Playing XI): KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(c), Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant(w), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

Captain @imVkohli wins the toss and #TeamIndia will bat first.

A look at our Playing XI for the 1st Test.#SAvIND pic.twitter.com/DDACnaXiK8

— BCCI (@BCCI) December 26, 2021

This is Virat Kohli and Rahul Dravid’s first game as a skipper-coach duo. It is also 764 days (23 innings) Kohli has gone with scoring a century. Although he has passed 50 five times during that time, he has also suffered four ducks. Talking about Team India, since 2006, the Men in Blue have won at least one game in a 3-match series in South Africa, but have not managed to win a series yet.

As for the home team, they are battling challenges on and off the field and the visitors will be determined to defend their deserved record – be the number one team.

As far as the weather is concerned, it is predicted that Day 1 would be cloudy with thunderstorms expected later in the afternoon and night. It is expected that rainfall would take place at night which may affect the start of play on Day 2. However sunny conditions would prevail from Day 3, says the Accuweather app.