South Africa will look to increase their lead with a win when they face India in the second One Day International at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Saturday, January 15, 2011. They beat India convincingly in the first game, to take a 1-0 lead, on Wednesday at Kingsmead, Durban. They will look to push the advantage here to take a healthy lead in this five match series.
This series is very important for both sides as this would be their last one before the World Cup starts in February. India would be disappointed with the result, but they were missing their two frontline batsmen, Virendar Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir. Praveen Kumar was also absent due to an injury but his replacement, Munaf Patel bowled well.
India would however be worried about the bowling of Ashish Nehra. It is still not clear if India would go with three seamers on Indian tracks during the world cup and if they are not going to, then Nehra will be the one to find the axe. This could pave the way for Ravichandran Ashwin, who could even be used with the new ball, during the power play overs. He did it so successfully during the Indian Premier League and the Champions League and is also a handy batsman lower down the order.
The success of the part time bowlers in the last game should encourage MS Dhoni try out this tactic on a traditionally flat track like the Wanderers. South Africa, however, should not read much into this performance, at least bowling wise. Their success was due to the presence of four fast bowlers and a bouncy Kingsmead track. However, these are luxuries that they cannot afford during the World Cup.
When many expected to see either Imran Tahir or Francois du Plessis in action, South Africa went for the pace quartet. While this is the right thing to do if they were looking to take it one game at a time, this is not the right preparation for the World Cup. To make things worse, their premier slow bowler, Johan Botha, was taken apart with ease, when things were hard to come by.
Batting under lights will make a difference so the team winning the toss should be batting first. It should be an exciting contest but South Africa hold the edge.