TEST OF INDIA'S SWAGGER

Beautiful table mountain on one side and the sea shore on the other, there is no better venue to start the new year than the Newlands, Cape Town. Sun has been shining bright for the last few days in the southernmost city of South Africa. Newlands is generally a belter of a wicket to bat on. There will be a bit of movement early on in the first session but if they get through the first session without losing more than one wicket, plenty of runs will be on the cards. Bounce will be true so the players can play through the line of the ball, they can play pull shots and the square cuts. Spinners won't be as effective as they might be in Durban but they can extract a lot of bounce which might be an ally to them. India look the more settled side of the two. The combination according to me will be six batsmen plus wicket keeper plus three fast bowlers and a spinner. With the form he is in, Rohit Sharma is pretty certain to make the XI. The toss up will be between Ajinkya Rahane and Hardik Pandya but it is very unlikely India will go for Hardik Pandya as Rahane is a very crucial part of this Indian set up if he gets back in the form. Four bowlers to me will be Bhuvaneswar Kumar, Mohommad Shami,  Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin. The reason I think India will go in with these three fast bowlers is that all three of them are different in some way. Bhuvaneswar is a swing bowler, Mohommad Shami is a skidy type of a bowler while Ishant Sharma is a hit the deck bowler which is an important commodity to possess when playing in South Africa or Australia. India could have a toss up between Ishant and Umesh but Umesh and Shami would be too similar therefore I think they will go with Ishant. With the selection criteria back in the picture, South Africa might not be able to field their best XI which is really disappointing. AB de Villiers will be back which is huge for South Africa but in the craziest of scenarios, he might not be able to make the XI because of the selection criteria which states that there should be at least six non whites including two Black Africans. There has been a lot of talk about Dale Steyn but it looks pretty obvious that he won't be included in the XI for the first test. Rabada will be important as he will most likely be complemented by Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander without any services of Chris Morris as an all rounder.
    The one thing we always remember while remember when India is touring South Africa is that the asian teams have a very very poor record in South Africa. It is very difficult to predict an Indian victory but this Indian side will surely give South Africa a run for their money. There has been a lot of build up to this series, let's hope the it delivers as much as it has promised it would.

Predicted XI:
INDIA: Murli Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli(C), Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha(WK), R Ashwin, Bhuvaneswar Kumar, Mohommad Shami, Ishant Sharma

SOUTH AFRICA: Aiden Markram, Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis (C), AB de Villiers, Temba Bavuma, Q de Kock, Vernon Philander, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel