India and South Africa clashed in the third and final ODI of the series at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam, on December 6, 2025. The series is tied 1-1, as India won the first ODI in Ranchi and South Africa won the second match in Raipur.

All the focus was on India captain KL Rahul, as the Men in Blue had not been lucky with the coin toss. India had lost 20 consecutive tosses in ODI cricket, with their last toss win coming in the semi-final of the ICC World Cup 2023, in Mumbai against New Zealand.

Since then, India has not won a single toss in ODIs, with them winning the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 as well. Captains changed from Rohit Sharma to Shubman Gill to KL Rahul, and still India failed to win a single toss until Vishakhapatnam.

When KL Rahul tossed the coin in the air, South Africa captain Temba Bavuma called heads; however, the coin landed as tails, and KL Rahul had a huge smile plastered on his face and did a little fist pump in celebration as Temba Bavuma smiled at him.

KL Rahul decided that India would bowl first and chase in the deciding ODI of the series.

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South Africa was forced to make two changes as Nandre Burger and Tony de Zorzi had suffered hamstring injuries and were ruled out of the game. Ryan Rickelton and Ottneil Baartman were included in the playing XI for the third ODI.

KL Rahul revealed that India made one change, with Tilak Varma coming in for Washington Sundar.

“We'll bowl. We trained here last night, and the feedback from the coaches was that there was dew, but it didn't come in as early as in Ranchi and Raipur. We were obviously planning to bowl second, keeping our track record in mind. I don't think it's going to play such a big part like Raipur and Ranchi. But we just want to change the total and see how we can bowl first. Yeah, it looks like a good wicket. For me, the leadership group, we're really happy with the way we played in the last two games.

I know from the outside, 360 being chased down looks like a lot is going wrong. But considering the conditions and considering the way our teams are lined up, I think we did really well. There are a lot of positives to take, and I'm really happy with the way we bowled and batted. The chat obviously has been to keep doing the same thing and stay consistent with what we're doing and stay consistent with that process. We know that the results will follow. Not many things that we're looking to change. Just trying to sharpen a couple of things in the field, and the results will go our way. One change. Washington Sundar misses out, and Tilak Varma comes in,” Rahul stated at the toss.

India XI:

Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, KL Rahul (C/WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna

South Africa XI:

Ryan Rickelton, Quinton de Kock (WK), Temba Bavuma (C), Matthew Breetzke, Aiden Markram, Dewald Brevis, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Ottneil Baartman