India vs South Africa match start time: 5th T20I IND vs SA match start time today after rain delay

India vs South Africa match start time: The fifth T20I between India and South Africa was scheduled to begin at 07:00 PM (IST).

During the fifth T20I of the ongoing South Africa’s tour of India in Bengaluru, South Africa stand-in captain Keshav Maharaj has won the toss and chose to bowl extending regular captain Temba Bavuma’s unbeaten toss-winning streak.

“We will bowl first, the overhead conditions, the dew, we can look to exploit the conditions but it does look like a good wicket to bat on,” Maharaj told Star Sports at the toss.

Leading India for the first time in this series, captain Rishabh Pant has now lost five tosses in a row. Asked to bat first for the fifth consecutive time, Pant laid emphasis on looking to score between 180-190 on a high-scoring Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch.

“The [toss] practice isn’t working for me [smiles]. Looks like a good wicket. We would like to get anything around 180-190. We just need to focus on the process and put in our 100% into the game,” Pant told Star Sports at the toss.

India vs South Africa match start time today after rain delay

With Bavuma not recovering from an injury, he has been replaced by opening batter Reeza Hendricks. South Africa, who have strengthened their batting for this match, have also included Tristan Stubbs and Kagiso Rabada for Marco Jansen and Tabraiz Shamsi.

India, who hadn’t tinkered with their Playing XI in the first four T20Is, have persisted with the same in this match as well becoming the first-ever team to field a same Playing XI in five matches of a bilateral T20I series.

It was right before the start of the match that rain started to pour down over the M Chinnaswamy Stadium to prove the weather prediction right for tonight. A 50-minute delay to the start of the match has resulted in it being reduced to a 19-over contest. Originally scheduled to begin at 07:00 PM (IST), the series-decider will now begin at 07:50 PM.