South Africa in India, 3rd ODI: In topsy-turvy series, can either team seize control?

With MS Dhoni serving notice that reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated, the one-day series between India and South Africa is nicely poised at 1-1 heading into the third ODI in Rajkot on Sunday. Dhoni’s swashbuckling 92 not out turned the match in Indore on its head and Axar Patel and Harbhajan Singh responded with some incisive spin bowling and were ably backed up by the swing and seam of Bhuvneshwar Kumar. [caption id=“attachment_2472604” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  India won a game in Indore that South Africa should have won. Which side will get the upper hand in Rajkot? AFP[/caption] The win kept India from falling into a 0-2 hole from which it would have been hard to recover, and would also have boosted the team’s confidence against a determined South Africa side. But it also papered over the problems facing the home side. The batting has been iffy, with Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan and Suresh Raina in particular having a hard time of it. Raina has lasted a total of eight deliveries over two games while Kohli hasn’t gone past 30 in his last seven innings. India need at least two of them to get their groove back because Rohit Sharma and Dhoni aren’t going to produce the kind of innings they have in the first two games every day. On the flip side, India appear to have, at least for the time being, settled the issue of Ajinkya Rahane and his place in the line-up. Dhoni has made it clear Rahane will bat at No. 3 and Kohli at No. 4. Of course that means Dhoni can’t bat any higher than No. 5 but given how he batted in the last game, he can still do the job (provided he gets to come in early enough). India’s bowling remains a work in progress as well. Including Axar in the playing XI means India had to leave out Amit Mishra, while R Ashwin’s recovery from a side strain is uncertain, so Harbhajan could find himself getting a second game. Umesh Yadav’s inconsistency is another problem and Dhoni could well make a change for Rajkot. Meanwhile South Africa will want to regroup after Indore and put the match behind them. It is a game they had control of and even after Dhoni’s knock, a target of 248 was not beyond them. South Africa captain AB de Villiers was critical of the way some of his top order batsmen got out - “most of the dismissals were pretty soft” - and you’d expect South Africa to tighten up their approach. Their bowling has largely done the job for them, though, coming through at the death in the first ODI and then having Indian batsmen on the ropes for the majority of the second match. The wild card surrounding the game is the proposed protest by Hardik Patel, who is campaigning for quotas for Patels in Gujarat. Hardik has threatened to prevent both teams from reaching the stadium on Sunday, saying that Patel community members will cordon off the Saurashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Khanderi village on the outskirts of Rajkot city, as tickets were allegedly not sold to his community members. However, the police claim to have put in place adequate security measures to ensure the game goes on as scheduled. This is a series in which both sides can claim the possibility of being 2-0 up at this stage. A better finish would have taken India over the line in the first ODI while a better batting performance in the second would taken South Africa to victory. Game three offers the chance for one of the teams to grab hold of the series by the scruff of the neck. Given that South Africa are the more settled side, that could well end up making the difference. (with inputs from PTI)