India is set to play a five-match T20 series against South Africa from 9th June to 19th June at five different venues. While the South African team has already reached Delhi, Team India will assemble on 5th June.
The Indian squad for the series was declared on 22nd May. While there were inclusions of players like Arshdeep Singh and Umran Malik who got their maiden call ups for the team, there is a star player who has played 56 T20I matches for the country but will play his maiden match in the shortest format against the Proteas.
After his outstanding performance in this year's IPL, KL Rahul is set to lead Team India for the upcoming home series. It might come as a surprise that he has never played a single Twenty20 match against South Africa.
The right-handed batsman played his first T20I match in 2016 against Zimbabwe. He has scored 1831 runs in Twenty20 International with two centuries and 16 fifties.
The T20 series will be played with no restrictions as far as the crowd capacity is concerned, as the BCCI has allowed 100% crowd capacity. There will be no bio-bubble too. However, the players will go through regular Covid-19 tests.
India squad: KL Rahul, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Dinesh Karthik, Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen and Marco Jansen.
