The one-off T20I between South Africa and India will be played at the Moses Mahiba stadium in Durban. The Test series between the two teams was earlier drawn 1-1.

Apart from the serious matter of a T20 game, there will be an air of fun given that it will also be a two-decade anniversary for the South African players who had played in the first ever ODI they had played. Makhaya Ntini also plays in his farewell game while India will have a set of new players given the injuries to Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.

In fact, this is the reason why there isn’t much to choose from between the two teams – South Africa are marginally favourites at 10/11 (SportingBet), while India go into the game at 11/10 (Blue Square). There are no ties possible given that a level score at the end of the game leads to a Super Over – a tie-breaker to break the deadlock.

Interestingly, India may see most of the players who had featured in the Test series, miss this game. Sehwag and Gambhir are injured while the likes of Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman and Cheteshwar Pujara do not play in the T20 format of the game.

This will mean that India will, in all probability, go into the game with a couple of new openers – Murali Vijay (9/2 at SportingBet) and one of Virat Kohli (11/2 at SportingBet) or Yusuf Pathan (10/1 at BetFred). Pathan may find it difficult to adjust to the short ball and that is where the Indian think-tank would do well to get him down to the middle-order instead.

Yuvraj Singh (11/2 at BetFred), who would have been excited to be sold for a whopping price of nearly $2 million in the IPL auctions will return to the city where he had hit six sixes in an over off the bowling of Stuart Broad in the World T20.

South Africa will be led by Johan Botha, while Graeme Smith (10/3 at SkyBet) will still open the innings with Hashim Amla (10/3 at SkyBet). Amla’s return to the T20 game has been prompted by his rich vein of form that saw him emerge as one of the best in the world in Tests and ODIs in 2010.

There will be two other youngsters who should make it to the middle-order – Colin Ingram (5/1 at SkyBet) and David Miller (8/1 at Boylesports) – and a good performance by either should help them cement their place in the South African side. AB de Villiers (4/1 at BetFred) could well be the player to watch out for as he looks to juggle his batting with the newly-afforded role of wicket-keeping.