Last chance at redemption for South Africa

December 3-7, 2015
Start time 0930 local (0400GMT)

On paper this series resembled India's tour of England in 2011. Big expectation, No. 1 side to be tested over a long period of time by the hosts, the No. 1 side loses its No. 1 bowler in the first Test, it competes for a Test and a half, and is then run ragged. The key feature of both the assaults on the best side in the world at that moment was the complete decapitation of their batting units. Except for Rahul Dravid then and AB de Villiers now, the rest played as if they were facing ghosts and not bowlers.

That is where comparisons end. India struggled on normal English pitches. South Africa have had to face extreme conditions, the most recent parallel to which is what India encountered in New Zealand in 2002-03. The ICC officiating team - match referee and the umpires - has labelled Nagpur "poor". Mohali was on the borderline. Bangalore was good, but who knows how it would have turned out had the week in the lead-up to the Test seen some sun?

While India have won, they have spent every breathing minute in public defending the pitches as opposed to basking in what should have been the glory of beating the best travellers of Test cricket in recent history. South Africa will want to provide another difference between the two series by competing hard once the series is lost whereas back in 2011 the bruised and battered best side in the world just sleepwalked through a whitewash.

There is no time for Delhi to react to ICC's verdict, which arrived about 40 hours before the toss. Daljit Singh, the artist who gave us Mohali, has been overseeing Delhi too, and after Ravi Shastri's proclamation he wanted something similar to Nagpur, it is hard to expect a much better track. If it turns out to be better, it won't be for a lack of effort. The ground staff will be caught between a rock and a hard place: the team wants a replica of Nagpur, the ICC has called it poor. A part of them must be wishing the High Court hadn't intervened and kept the Test at Feroz Shah Kotla after financial irregularities in the organising association nearly resulted in losing Delhi the match.

(last five completed games most recent first)
India WDWWW
South Africa LDLDD

Dean Elgar has confounded all through the series. He comes across as a feisty character and he has, in theory the easiest of batting slots in India: at the top of the order. Along with M Vijay, not surprisingly also an opener, he has got off to the most number of starts in this series. Yet Elgar has been finding ways to get out. It can sound harsh on a man playing for the first time in such extreme conditions, but he has been in the best position of all except AB de Villiers to have a big influence on South Africa. Can he get off to another start? Can he convert it?

Poor Ajinkya Rahane. He has worked his backside off scoring all those runs in testing conditions outside Asia, and he now finds himself facing even tougher conditions at home, just as it was when he debuted, against Australia in Delhi. He now averages under eight in India. Hopefully his dressing room is not telling him he has forgotten the art of grafting for runs.

There has been no rain, we are in no danger of seeing any seam movement, which means India should keep their three spinners intact. Depending on how much turn India expect from the Delhi surface, they will either play the extra batsman in Rohit Sharma or the extra bowler in Varun Aaron.

India (probable): 1 Shikhar Dhawan, 2 M Vijay, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli (capt), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 R Ashwin, 9 Amit Mishra, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Rohit Sharma/Varun Aaron.

Dale Steyn has been ruled out. Stiaan van Zyl's lack of form is a big problem so one option for South Africa is to bring in Temba Bavuma for van Zyl at the top of the order. Bavuma is a middle-order batsman, but the way South Africa have been going there is no distinction between top and middle orders.

South Africa (probable): 1 Dean Elgar, 2 Stiaan van Zyl/ Temba Bavuma, 3 Hashim Amla, 4 AB de Villiers, 5 Faf du Plessis, 6 JP Duminy, 7 Dane Vilas (wk), 8 Simon Harmer/Dane Piedt/Marchant de Lange, 9 Kagiso Rabada/Kyle Abbott, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Imran Tahir.

If you lived in Delhi more than four-five years ago and came back expecting fog and cold in December, you are in for a rude shock. It is hardly cold here, the forecast is clear and unless the Delhi pollution plays up we shouldn't lose any time to the elements.

"We've got England coming shortly so it would be good for us to get back to winning ways."
Hashim Amla looks for consolations

"I don't want to say much about the pitch as lot has been said about it. It's better if we talk about the positives. Because when the team wins, you should get support from every corner. We always try to find points to criticise people, but we should give confidence to people. That's why this is something which I don't find logical, that everyone is commenting on the pitch."
Virat Kohli wants some credit for the team too