ICC Champions Trophy : India vs South Africa, acid test awaits for Virat Kohli

London: Virat Kohli will be facing the toughest battle of his nascent ODI captaincy career when defending champions India take on South Africa in a do-or-die virtual 'quarter-final' of the ICC Champions Trophy, here on Sunday.

Their confidence shaken after Sri Lanka effortlessly out-batted them in a high-scoring encounter, the Indian team and Kohli in particular will be keen to ensure that South Africa are continued to be known as "chokers".

For AB de Villiers, it will be an opportunity to prove that self-imposed exile from five-day game has not affected his limited overs skills.

With three quality left-handers – Quinton de Kock, JP Duminy and David Miller – in the South African line-up, Kohli can't afford to keep Ravichandran Ashwin in cold storage.

Ashwin atleast has some natural variations, including the off-break which is his stock ball. The proud performer that he is, Ashwin will be smarting after being excluded in the first two games and it can only work positively in India's favour.

The other big factor is Jadeja's electric fielding inside the circle and the powerful arm from anywhere at the boundary line. Jadeja can save at least 15 runs per match which makes him an useful player in this format.

Jasprit Bumrah is another specialist bowler, who is a certainty in the playing XI, with his ability to bowl Yorkers at will at the death.

In the second Powerplay overs during the Sri Lanka match, India had conceded over 200 runs, something Ashwin will be asked to check as a marauding AB de Villiers will be itching to score big.

With new Powerplay rules, any total of less than 340 can be knocked off with some positive intent in strokeplay.

Kohli is happy with the batting performance but on a practical note, feels that they may need 20 runs of cushion. "May be you think of phases where we could have accelerated (vs Sri Lanka), but I don't see that as a major issue.

On the personal front, Kohli himself would like to lead with the bat against a side that has bowlers like Morne Morkel and all-rounder Chris Morris. With an interesting main plot and layers of sub-plot, one can brace up for some exhilarating action between two quality sides.

Squads:

India: Virat Kohli (Captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Kedar Jadhav, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Umesh Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Dinesh Karthik, Ajinkya Rahane.

South Africa: AB de Villiers (Captain), Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock (wicketkeeper), David Miller, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Imran Tahir, Keshav Maharaj, Farhan Behardien, Chris Morris, Wayne Parnell, Andile Phehlukwayo, Dwayne Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada.