Former India opener Wasim Jaffer is known for his witty and sometimes quizzical ways of sharing his predictions with cricket fans on the eve of an important Indian team match, but ahead of the first ODI against South Africa, he revealed his predicted India XI in a straight forward way.
The first ODI of the three-match series against South Africa will be played on January 19 at Boland Park in Paarl. The second ODI will also be played at the same venue on January 21 and the third and final ODI will be played on January 23 in Cape Town.
KL Rahul will be captaining the Indian team for the first time in the format, having recently made his Test captaincy debut in the Johannesburg match. And Jasprit Bumrah has been named the vice-captain of the team.
As for Jaffer’s Predicted Indian XI, he went for Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan as openers. In the middle order, he picked Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, and Rishabh Pant. For the role of finisher, Jaffer chose Suryakumar Yadav and for some more help, he got in Shardul Thakur as well.
One of Bhuvneshwar Kumar or Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah were named as the two fast bowlers apart from Shardul named in the XI. But as a surprise, Jaffer picked two spinners in R Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal, which seemingly is a good pick given the Proteas’ batters’ inability to counter quality spin.
Here is Wasim Jaffer’s predicted India playing XI for the 1st ODI:
KL Rahul (C), Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, Shardul Thakur, R Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar / Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah (VC)
