India and South Africa will renew their rivalry in the first of the three-match T20I series on December 10 at Kingsmead in Durban. The visitors have continued to rest their main players and a majority of the players who featured vs Australia in T20I series at home have been retained. With Hardik Pandya still injured, Suryakumar Yadav will continue to lead India in the shortest format on this tour.
Apart from captaincy, Surya will have to contribute majorly with the bat as well especially after a below par T20I series against Australia. After starting well, his form dwindled in the last three matches and ended up tallying 144 runs in the five-match series. Overall, Surya has scored 1985 runs in 55 innings in the format and needs only 15 runs from completing 2000 runs in T20Is.
Interestingly, if the 33-year-old hits his straps against South Africa, he has a chance to go past cricketers like Alex Hales and Brendon McCullum both of whom have retired from international cricket. While Hales mustered 2074 runs in 75 innings with one century and 12 fifties, McCullum amassed 2140 runs in 70 innings at a strike-rate of 136.21 with two tons and 13 fifties. Surya has a great chance of trumping both of these cricketers in the list of most runs scored in T20Is and if he manages to cross McCullum, the man will enter in top 20 of this list.
As for the Indian players, Virat Kohli (4008) and Rohit Sharma (3853) have scored most runs with KL Rahul being at the third place having scored 2265 runs in his career so far. All three players are still active in the shortest format but are not featuring in the South Africa series.
Most runs in T20Is
| Players | Runs scored |
| Virat Kohli (India) | 4008 |
| Rohit Sharma (India) | 3853 |
| Martin Guptill (New Zealand) | 3531 |
| Babar Azam (Pakistan) | 3485 |
| Paul Stirling (Ireland) | 3408 |
