Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis left amazed: Both the captain couldn’t help themselves but laugh during the toss in Ranchi.
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During the third Test of the ongoing South Africa’s tour of India in Ranchi, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis stood by his words and didn’t call for the toss in an interesting move. South Africa had sent in batsman Temba Bavuma as a “proxy captain” to call during the toss.
Having lost the toss and a significant advantage in the first two Tests, South Africa had decided to try someone other than du Plessis to call during the toss. However, Bavuma’s presence didn’t yield the desired result for them as India captain Virat Kohli ended up winning the toss for the third time in the series.
While Bavuma walked away right after losing the toss, the expressions on both Kohli and du Plessis’ face spoke highly about both disbelief and jocularity.
It is worth mentioning that the last time any South African Test captain (Hashim Amla) won the toss in Asia was during their tour of Bangladesh in 2015.
Virat Kohli and Faf du Plessis left amazed
“It [Bavuma losing the toss] shows that it isn’t meant to be. Important toss as this looks the driest surface of the series. It’s about the first innings really and we need to put runs on the board when we bat,” du Plessis was quoted as saying during the toss.
Former India spinner Murali Kartik, who was overseeing the toss, committed a blunder with respect to hearing what Bavuma called. According to Kartik, Bavuma had called “tails” but that wasn’t the case. The proxy skipper had called “heads” and lost the toss after the coin displayed “tails”.
Virat Kohli called it a no-brainer to bat first at the Toss #TeamIndia #INDvSA @Paytm 🇮🇳🇮🇳 pic.twitter.com/3V4fKvcVWr
— BCCI (@BCCI) October 19, 2019
While India made a solitary change to their Playing XI bringing in debutant spinner Shahbaz Nadeem in place of pacer Ishant Sharma, South Africa have made as many as five changes to their Playing XI.
Batsman Zubayr Hamza, uncapped wicket-keeper and spinner Heinrich Klaasen and George Linde, spinner Dane Piedt and fast bowler Lungi Ngidi have replaced the injured duo of opening batsman Aiden Markram and spinner Keshav Maharaj, batsman Theunis de Bruyn, all-rounder Senuran Muthusamy and veteran pacer Vernon Philander.
