India's stand-in captain KL Rahul has won the toss in the second ODI against South Africa in Paarl and opted to bat first.
For India, the team is unchanged while South Africa have made one change with Marco Jansen sitting out for Sisanda Magala.
South Africa lead the three-match series 1-0.
One of India's concerns after the first ODI was that there hadn't been enough partnerships among the middle-order batters.
“I think it's pretty straightforward, second game on the same strip and important to put runs on the board and guessing the wicket will get slower later on. In the middle overs we couldn't get the partnerships going and that's the learning from the last game, hopefully we can go out there today and show better performance. The batters themselves realized that's where it went wrong, we will learn from it and we have spoken about it. We are playing the same team,” KL Rahul said at the toss.
“We probably wanted to bat first, like KL said it's quite straightforward with the nature of the wicket. I think there will be opportunity in the first hour with the ball swinging and nipping a bit, if we can take a couple of wickets and put them under pressure. I wouldn't say it was a perfect game (first ODI), but I will take that result. It's just to get better from last game and try and find a way to improve and we have a better undertstanding of the wicket and what type of skills that we need, so just make sure we are on point in terms of that. We gonna have to do the basics well. One change for us. Sisanda comes in for Jansen. Marco had a big workload in the Test series, and felt he was a bit flat in the first game, we got full confidence in Magala and that's the reason behind the change,” Temba Bavuma said.
India lost the first ODI by 31 runs against South Africa in Boland Park and have all to play for here in the second ODI as the series is on the line. India remember are without their new white-ball captain Rohit Sharma, who was ruled out of the tour due to a hamstring injury.
India (Playing XI): KL Rahul(c), Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Shreyas Iyer, Venkatesh Iyer, Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal
South Africa (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock(w), Janneman Malan, Temba Bavuma(c), Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, Andile Phehlukwayo, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Sisanda Magala, Tabraiz Shamsi
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