From the previous Test against the West Indies, India made two changes to their playing XI, bringing in Rishabh Pant and Axar Patel in the place of Nitish Kumar Reddy and Sudharsan. Earlier, Nitish was released from the main squad for the first Test as he was asked to play the unofficial ODI series against South Africa A.

Former India batter Anil Kumble was left flummoxed with the team combination, saying he did not expect Sudharsan to be dropped as he questioned the constant need for having more and more all-rounders in the Test lineup.

“Really surprised at the lineup because I certainly expected Sai Sudarshan to be playing in this Test match. Who’s going to bat at No.3? That will be the question. Washington Sundar has been slotted to bat at No.3 so India will be bowling first. 4 spinners and 2 fast bowlers,” said Kumble on the official broadcast before the start of play.

“I certainly expected 3 spinners to play and 2 fast bowlers. So, that’s going to be a bit of a challenge. Day 1, the wicket is good. It’s not like you need 4 spinners and one of them will certainly get under-bowled. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how Shubman Gill uses his resources on Day 1. Of course, the 2 new ball bowlers will become that much more critical on day 1 for India,” he added.

It’s all-rounders

The former India captain, who is the leading wicket-taker for India in Tests, was also left short for words as he wasn’t able to wrap his head around the team combination for the first Test.

“It’s all-rounders. I mean, if you look at the batting lineup, Washington Sundar has been slotted at 3. So, obviously, if he bats at 3, then the batters are Shubman, Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul. The rest of them are all-rounders. I consider Rishabh Pant as an all-rounder,” said Kumble.

“Dhruv Jhurel is an all-rounder. Then you have Jadeja, Akshar Patel and Washington Sundar. So, it’s a team full of all-rounders, and that’s probably the kind of team that India is going with in all 3 formats of the game,” he added.

Speaking of the first Test between India and South Africa, the latter won the toss and opted to bat first. Kagiso Rabada is unavailable for the visitors as he is yet to recover from a rib injury.

Here are the playing XIs of both teams:

India: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Washington Sundar, Shubman Gill(captain), Rishabh Pant(w), Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.

South Africa: Aiden Markram, Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Temba Bavuma(captain), Tony de Zorzi, Tristan Stubbs, Kyle Verreynne(w), Simon Harmer, Marco Jansen, Corbin Bosch, Keshav Maharaj.