By Neil Manthorp.
South African captain, Temba Bavuma, won the toss and chose to bowl first on the first morning of the Boxing Day test against India at Centurion on Tuesday morning.
South Africa have handed test debuts to left arm fast bowler, Nander Burger, and middle order batsman David Bedingham. Surprisingly, the home side has omitted spinner Keshav Maharaj in favour of an all-seam attack.
India have also given a debut to right arm seamer, Prasidh Krishna, in place of the injured Mohammad Shami.
The two-test series has been billed the ‘Final Frontier’ for India which has won at least one series in every other test-playing nation other than South Africa, including their last two visits to Australia.
South Africa:Dean Elgar, Aiden Markram, Tony de Zorzi, Temba Bavuma (captain), Keegan Petersen, David Bedingham, Kyle Verreynne (wkt), Marco Jansen, Gerald Coetzee, Kagiso Rabada, Nandre Burger
India:Rohit Sharma (captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wkt), Ravichandran Ashwin, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna.