India vs South Africa T20 World Cup 2022 Predicted Playing 11: KL Rahul or Rishabh Pant, IND face tough choice at top

If Rishabh Pant wants a place in the team it’ll be as an opener. And that is where the discussion has been surrounding his possible selection for the South Africa match.

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Team India will take on Temba Bavuma’s South Africa in their third match of the Super 12 in Group 2 of the T20 World Cup 2022 in Perth on Sunday (October 30). On the bouncy WACA Stadium track, Rohit Sharma’s side face the dilemma of whether to continue to misfiring opener KL Rahul or try and bring in Rishabh Pant at the top to partner his skipper.

India batting coach Vikram Rathour has addressed the big selection debate ahead of the standout Group 2 game in Perth on Sunday. Two wins from two have India sitting pretty at the top of their Super 12 group, a point ahead of Sunday’s opponents South Africa.

India’s success in T20I cricket over the past year has been built on ruthless selection and clear thinking in terms of the batting order. No one decision illustrates that strategy more than Dinesh Karthik’s return behind the stumps and as a designated finisher in the batting line-up at the expense of Rishabh Pant.

KL Rahul missed a big opportunity by not taking the review. pic.twitter.com/CsA4uQcpEE — Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) October 27, 2022

Pant is one of the best T20 batters in the world, a rock of a top or middle-order player, capable of building match-winning contributions and anchoring a team’s innings. His explosive style in the longer formats gives a slightly misleading impression when translated to T20I cricket though. Particularly in international T20s, Pant has struggled to score at an electric pace, with a strike rate of 127.45 across his 52 T20I innings to-date.

In Pant’s case that means he is now competing for one of the top four slots. Suryakumar Yadav is a lock at four given his stunning form, and Virat Kohli has shown why he’s been continuously preferred at three. So if Pant wants a place in the team it’ll be as an opener. And that is where the discussion has been surrounding his possible selection for the South Africa match, with pundits such as Sunil Gavaskar raising the debate.

KL Rahul is the player Pant could potentially replace, with the right-hander returning two single-figure scores in the opening T20 World Cup matches, 4 against Pakistan and 9 against Netherlands. Rahul had looked to have discovered a bit of form in the run-up to the tournament, hitting 57 against Australia in the final warm-up game, and 74 against a Western Australia XI in the prior match. He also bagged back-to-back 50s against South Africa in the recent T20I series between the two nations.

In 12 full T20Is in 2022, Rahul has scored 319 runs at an average of 29 and a strike rate of 125.12. And those disappointing numbers only get worse when looking at his figures away from home conditions.

“We’re not really thinking that; two games, I don’t think that’s a good enough sample size anyways,” Rathour said. “He’s been batting really well and he’s batted really well in the practice games, also, so we're not looking at any such thing at the moment.”

Another change that India could consider might be giving Deepak Hooda an opportunity to play in place of Axar Patel, with the latter failing to impress with the bat so and struggling with the ball against the stronger Pakistan side.

India vs South Africa T20 World Cup 2022 Super 12 Group 2 Predicted Playing 11

India: Rohit Sharma (C), KL Rahul/Rishabh Pant, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel/Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami

South Africa: T Bavuma (C), Aiden Markram, David Miller, Rilee Rossouw, Tristan Stubbs, Wayne Parnell, Quinton de Kock, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi