India ended their experiment with the more versatile Washington Sundar by bringing in Tilak Varma in his place for the third and final ODI against South Africa on Saturday, December 6 at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. Sundar moved up the order in the first two games, batting at the fifth and sixth positions.
However, he failed to repay the trust of the management and scored 13 (19) and 1 (8) in two innings. With the ball, Sundar collectively bowled seven overs and gave away 46 runs without taking a wicket in the first two matches. In his place, Varma returned to playing ODIs after two years.
IND vs SA 3rd ODI Update
His last appearance in the 50-over format was also against South Africa in December 2023. The southpaw has played four ODIs so far and scored 68 runs with a top score of 52. On the other hand, South Africa also made two changes to their playing XI as Ryan Rickelton and Ottniel Baartmen came in due to injuries to Nandre Burger and Tony de Zordzi.
Meantime, India eventually won the toss after losing 20 consecutive times in ODIs as captain KL Rahul chose to bowl first.
“We will bowl. We trained here last night and the feedback from the coaches was that there was dew but it didn’t come as early as Ranchi and Raipur. Of course we planned to bowl second, keeping in mind our results so far. I don’t think it will play as big a role as Raipur and Ranchi. But we just want to change the total and see how we can bowl Rahul first.”
South Africa (Playing XI): Maharaja’s Sha.
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Tilak Varma, KL Rahul (w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Prasidh Krishna.
– The end
Issued by:
Rishabh Beniwal
Published on:
December 6, 2025
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