India will play South Africa in the first T20I of their five-match series at the Barabati Stadium in Cuttack on Tuesday, December 9.

The Men in Blue lost the Tests against the visitors, but emerged triumphant in the subsequent ODIs.

Now, the shortest format will pave the way for the T20 World Cup that is poised to be held in the country from February onwards.

Predicted XIs:

India: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill (vc), Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Sanju Samson (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy.

South Africa: Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock /Donovan Ferreira (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Dewald Brevis, Corbin Bosch, Marco Jansen, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Keshav Maharaj.

Squads:

India Squad: S

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