India’s 38th Test captain, Rishabh Pant, failed to bring any change in luck at the toss as South Africa decided to bat first without batting an eyelid. South Africa, holder of the unassailable series lead 1-0, made one change to their XI, bringing in spin allrounder Senuram Muthusamy for Corbin Bosch. That means Wiaan Mulder retained his place, but the team sheet slated him to bat lower in the order. With Kagiso Rabada ruled out, Mulder was also the second quick.
India’s selection task was not as straightforward. They were missing regular captain Shubman Gill, but they felt the need to balance out the number of left-hand batters in the line-up. The last Test was the first time they played six of them. A direct swap between B Sai Sudharsan and Gill would have made it seven so they also brought in Nitish Kumar Reddy, a seam-bowling allrounder with a Test century in Australia to his name, for spin-bowling allrounder Axar Patel.
This Test was also a debut for Guwahati, now the eastern-most Test venue in India. With only one time zone in India, it gets dark in Guwahati fairly early, which meant play was scheduled to start at 9am.
South Africa 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Ryan Rickelton, 3 Tristan Stubbs, 4 Tony de Zorzi, 5 Temba Bavuma (capt.), 6 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 7 Wiaan Mulder, 8 Senuran Muthusamy, 9 Marco Jansen, 10 Simon Harmer, 11 Keshav Maharaj
India 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 KL Rahul, 3 B Sai Sudharsan, 4 Dhruv Jurel, 5 Rishabh Pant (capt. & wk), 6 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Mohammed Siraj
