India Playing XI vs South Africa- 3rd T20I, South Africa Tour of India 2025

India will take on South Africa in the third of the five-match T20I series. This article provides details about India's Playing 11 vs South Africa for the third match of the series.

India Playing XI vs South Africa- 3rd T20I, South Africa Tour of India 2025:

Openers: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill

India would be disappointed with the way the team performed in the second T20I against South Africa and would be itching to make a strong comeback in the next match.

The Men in Blue were below par with both bat and ball in the previous game, and as a result, were outplayed by the visitors.

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The Suryakumar Yadav-led side would hope for the openers to get the team off to a good start, something which the pair of Abhishek Sharma hasn't been able to do in the first two matches.

Both batters would be backed by the team management to lay a platform that the middle order baters can make full use of and get the South African bowlers under pressure.

Along with that, Abhishek and Shubman would also be entrusted to score runs individually, which has also not happened in the T20I series so far.

If the openers are able to fulfill their job, then the T20 World Cup winners will have every chance of breaching the 200-run mark in Dharamsala, which is known to be a high-scoring venue.

Middle-order batsmen and all-rounders: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Axar Patel

Like the openers, India's captain Suryakumar Yadav hasn't been in good form either since taking over as the team's captain in 2024 and is struggling to score runs, especially this year, which he would like to correct in the next match.

However, it isn't all loomy and gloomy for the home team in the batting department as the likes of Tilak Varma and Hardik Pandya, who played good knocks in either match, would hope to keep up the good work in the third game.

An interesting thing to watch out for in the third T20I would be the batting order if Axar Patel, as the left-hander, was sent at number three in the chase of 214 runs to flex his muscles, which he failed to do.

The onus will be on the top five batters to score the majority of the runs for the team and not depend on the depth that the team has in its batting to do the job.

Bowlers: Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh

If we talk about India's bowling attack, it also looked out of plans against the aggressive approach of Quinton de Kock, who took the game away from them in the first fifteen overs.

Although India did make a comeback by restricting South Africa to 213 from a position where the Aiden Markram-led side looked on course to get to 230-240, it wasn't enough as the visitors registered a comfortable win in the end.

The only shining light in a bowling lineup that comprised of Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Axar Patel, and Hardik Pandya was Varun Chakaravarthy, who was economical and picked up two wickets.

The bowling attack will have to execute its plans in the next match in order to increase India's chances of winning.