Team India captain Rohit Sharma confirmed that playing XI is almost finalized for the Boxing Day Test against South Africa at SuperSport Park in Centurion on December 26, Tuesday.
The upcoming Test series against Proteas will see the return of Rohit, Virat Kohli, and Jasprit Bumrah, who are set to make their first appearance for Team India after the World Cup Final defeat last month.
However, the visitors will miss the services of Mohammed Shami who has been ruled of two-match Test series due to ankle injury. Wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan withdrew from the tour reportedly due to mental fatigue as he has been on road with team for over a year.
Addressing the media on the eve of 1st Test against South Africa, Rohit said that '75%' of team is finalized and the rest will be done in the team meeting. He added that there will be a toss up between Mukesh Kumar and Prasidh Krishna as a third pacer in the team.
"Both are different bowlers. Prasidh is a tall, hit the deck bowler. He can extract a lot from the pitch. Mukesh has been impressive for the last 6-8 months. It depends on how the wicket behaves and what we want." Indian captain said.
"75% of the team is locked, but we will decide it today in the evening, during the team meeting,” he added
Rohit Sharma on World Cup Final Defeat
Rohit Sharma has again opened up on heartbreaking World Cup final defeat and how he managed to overcome it. Team India captain added that he is unsure whether the World Cup final loss would be compensated with Test series win against South Africa.
"Personally I got lots of encouragement from the outside public after the World Cup, it helped me a lot to recover from the loss." he said.
"We've never won a Test series in South Africa, if we win the series, I don't know if it can compensate for the World Cup loss. World Cup is a World Cup, we can't compare." Rohit added.
Team India will look to break the 31-year-old shackle of not winning the Test series in South Africa.
