India vs South Africa, 2020: 4 Indians to watch out for in the ODI series

India, of late, have been playing cricket regularly without an optimum break. Virat Kohli and company stayed in New Zealand for about six weeks and didn’t have a great tour. Despite whitewashing the hosts in the T20I series, India underachieved in the other two formats. Now, a few weeks before the IPL 2020, the Men in Blue are scheduled to face South Africa in the three-match ODI series.

The Indian captain along with Ravi Shastri, the head coach, spoke that the 50-over format is not very relevant this year. And, the selectors have picked up almost a full-strength squad for this series. Rohit Sharma is recovering from the calf-injury and isn’t a part of the Indian squad.

The right-arm quick Mohammed Shami is also rested. The IPL is a long tournament, and, thus, the Indian selectors could have given rest to the likes of Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah who have been playing non-stop cricket in recent times.

Mayank Agarwal, Kedar Jadhav, Shivam Dube and Shardul Thakur have been dropped, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan and Hardik Pandya are making a comeback. Shubman Gill is rewarded a place in the squad. Even though this series is not very significant, the Indian management is in no mood to take it lightly as the squad selection suggests.

In this article, we have featured four Indian players to watch out for in the ODI series:

1. Prithvi Shaw

In the ODI series against New Zealand, India opted to go with two inexperienced players at the top of the order. Prithvi Shaw got fair starts in all the games, however, he failed to register a big score. Anyway, the youngster did enough to secure his spot and the unavailability of Rohit has helped as well.

The most talked thing about the opening batsman is his ‘intent’. Shaw is a fearless batsman and scores at a quicker rate from the word go. His strike rate in List A cricket is over 118. And, Shaw averages above 44 in List A cricket. The 20-year-old can maximize the usage of the powerplay as he possesses the required intent and skills for that.

Shaw uses the horizontal bat shots well which adds another dimension in his gameplay. Considering the fact that the next ODI World Cup is in India, Shaw is definitely worth giving a go. The right-handed batsman is expected to open in all the matches of this series and will try to make the opportunity count.