Vadodara, after the home series of Australia and the West Indies, the real test will be against South Africa. Performance of India against Australia and West Indies is very fantastic. Zaheer Khan has got the chance, Gautam Gambhir did not get included for this series. Anbati Rayudu is included as a reserve batsman in the team for this tour.
Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha are really performing well on home pitches, but Indian team needs to improve in pace attack against South Africa. Team India fails to establish in pace attack in some series. In South Africa, current pace attack has more improvement on their pitches. Most selectors of BCCI are in favor of experienced pace attack. So, they choose Zaheer Khan as an experienced fast bowler.
South Africa is the superb team in the world and their performance against Pakistan team is really appreciative. The Indian team in South Africa will play three ODIs and two Test series. Three match ODI series will start on 5 December and tests will be played from December 18 to 26th of date.
Indian team is as follows for both ODIs and Tests -
Test - Mahendra Singh Dhoni ( captain ) , Shikhar Dhawan , Murali Vijay , Cheteshwar Pujara , Virat Kohli , Rohit Sharma , Ajinkya Rahane , R Ashwin , Bhubaneswar Kumar , Mohammad Shami , Zaheer Khan , Anbati Rayudu , Umesh Yadav , Wriddhiman Saha , Ishant Sharma , Pragyan Ojha and Ravindra Jadeja.
ODI - Mahendra Singh Dhoni ( captain ) , Shikhar Dhawan , Rohit Sharma , Virat Kohli , Yuvraj Singh , Suresh Raina , Ravindra Jadeja , R Ashwin , Bhubaneswar Kumar , Mohammad Shami , Ishant Sharma , Anbati Rayudu , Mohit Sharma , Umesh Yadav , Amit Mishra and Ajinkya Rahane.