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India’s national cricket team will host that of South Africa for the first of three T20I matches at ACA–VDCA Cricket Stadium in Vishakhapatnam on Sunday.
In the United States, the match will start Sunday morning at 9:30 a.m ET. It won’t be on TV anywhere in the US, but can watch the match live right here on ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of the entire South Africa Tour of India, plus dozens of other live sports, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and other original content for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch a live stream of India vs South Africa on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
India vs South Africa 1st T20I Preview
Sunday’s T20 match will be the first of three, which will be followed by a trio of tests. The Proteas will then return to India in March 2020 for three ODIs.
The Men in Blue are coming off a successful trip to Florida, Guyana, and the West Indies. They bested the Windies in T20, ODI, and test series without dropping a match.
“We want to win every game, whether it’s home or away, any format — we just want to go out there, play our best cricket and win,” India captain Virat Kohli said on Saturday, according to the official ICC website.
At the Cricket World Cup in July, Kohli’s squad finished the group stage atop the table with 15 points, but they were ousted by New Zealand in the semi-finals.
Kohli noted that India’s roster for the upcoming series was selected with the 2020 T20 World Cup in mind.
“We wanted to give opportunities to players who have done well for the past two years in the domestic circuit and T20 cricket in the IPL,” he said, per the ICC site. “It is about finding the best possible balance we can for the side and not necessarily stick to one particular type of balance. If other teams can bat till number nine, so why cannot we? Whatever decisions are made, they are made looking at the future.”
“The first two to three T20I series will help us assess every situation. Definitely the roadmap for T20 World Cup in 2020 is on our mind. It is an exciting prospect looking at the new bunch of guys in our lineup.”
South Africa collected just seven points in their nine World Cup group stage ODIs, placing seventh out of 10 teams and failing to reach the knockout stage. They haven’t played since.
“We had a disappointing World Cup campaign, so now we’ve got the opportunity to make a really strong statement and bounce back from that,” top-order batsman Rassie van der Dussen said, according to ESPNcricinfo. “There’s a T20 World Cup in just over a year. We’ve got 20 T20 games before that, so this will show us exactly where we are, playing against one of the strongest teams in the world. If we win, we know we’re on the right track. If we fall short in one or two of the games, we’ll know exactly what we need to work on.
“India is one of the strongest teams in the world. They’re in their home conditions. For us, it’s going to be a massive challenge.”