South Africa Vs India Test series: Five things to watch out in 2018's first cracking contest

After staying unbeaten in longer format for three years at subcontinent, Team India would start their 2018 season from today by taking on South Africa at Cape Town. The three-Test match series will be followed by another two crucial tours in England and Australia for Virat Kohli's men.

While the visitors enter the series as the huge favourite, going by their overall form and balance, the Proteas outfit would be a jittery one, due to their poor Test run from 2015. In last two years, they suffered 0-3 humiliation in India, followed by defeats against England both home and away. Their only success was the 2-1 victory in Australia. However, if they manage to whitewash the touring Indians, they will be the joint number one in Test rankings.

With a cracker of a series starting from today, here are some of the interesting aspects to watch for during the next few weeks:

A stern comeback test for Dale Steyn: With 63 wickets in 17 Test matches, Steyn has played the wrecker-in-chief's role perfectly against India. The 34-year-old, who is coming back after a 14-month injury layoff, is only four away from Shaun Pollock's record of 421 Test scalps. Although he will get support from his other new-ball partners Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel and Andile Phehlukwayo, he has to battle against the rustiness, created by a lack of decent match practices.

Steyn's weak right shoulder (which saw three muscle tears during the 2016 Australia tour), may also prevent him to bounce out the likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara and Murali Vijay. Although the Proteas will be eager to see Steyn repeating his 2010/11 and 2013/14's destroying act against Indians, they need to take a hard call of excluding one from the in-form trio of Morkel, Rabada and Phehlukwayo.

Golden opportunity for Virat Kohli to edge past both Steve Smith and De Villiers: The three-match series will reignite the Virat Kohli-AB de Villiers battle again. If the Proteas legend (8127 runs in 107 matches) is ahead of Kohli (5268 runs in 63 matches) in terms of experience and numbers, the Indian skipper's rampaging form in last two years (2274 runs in 22 Test matches, with six double-tons) certainly makes him the man to watch out for. While De Villiers, along with skipper Faf du Plessis and opener Hashim Amla will be looking to defuse the Indian pacers, Kohli would be looking to carry on from where he left in the last month's Sri Lanka series. Going by the duo's aggressive stroke playing ability, their fans will be expecting another cracker of a contest. 

Not only De Villiers, but the in-form Aussie skipper Steven Smith too would be in Kohli's radar, as he will be looking to end the debate of who is better. While the Delhi lad would be facing some tough weeks ahead, both as batsman and skipper, he would like to begin 2018 on a good note in rainbow nation, which, in turn, will give him a boost to do well in the upcoming England and Australia tours.

Time for Rahane to prove his overseas mettle again: The Indian vice-captain had a mediocre 2017, where he could manage only 554 runs in eleven Test matches. However, talking about his relationship with the rainbow nation, he had a decent outing during the 2013/14 series, where he scored 209 runs in two games. This time around, the Mumbai batsman will be the middle-order mainstay against an informed Proteas pace battery. His primary challenge would be to prevent late batting collapses, something which haunted India four years earlier. That time, in the first Test at Johannesburg, the MS Dhoni-led side collapsed from 315-2 to 421 in second innings. The same story followed in a flat Durban track, where they threw away a strong start of 198-2 and got bundled out for 334. This time it hurt them badly, as they lost the game by ten wickets, ending the series with a 0-1 result.

So this time around, if Kohli and Co. want to put big first innings total against Proteas, Rahane will have to implement his usual risk-free and timing-based approach on Proteas green tops. With already proving his capability in tough conditions like New Zeland, England and Australia, another solid performance from the Mumbai lad will help him calm his nerves before the upcoming England and Australia tours.

The battle between Indian fast bowlers and Proteas batting: The five-member Indian pace attack, comprising Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah will be looking to repeat the feat of the Zaheer Khan-Sreesanth combo during the 2006/7 and 2010/11 tours. Facing them will be the Proteas batting line-up with experienced names like Hashim Amla, AB De Villiers, Faf Du Plessis and Quinton De Kock, who has milked Indian bowling in the past.

Ever since the 2011 World Cup, a key weakness of the Indian pacers during overseas tours has been their economy rate over four. During the 2013/14 season, despite having favourable playing conditions in South Africa, England and Australia, the Indian new-ball attack failed to stitch together a spell of tight overs. While bowling half-volleys almost every over around the middle and leg stump line, they were guilty of letting opposition tail-enders to score almost 150-200 runs per match. However, under Kohli's helm, the same bowlers became much more menacing. While learning to attack the off-stump line more, they were also given the responsibility of bowling five-six spells per day, despite spinners doing well. This time around, they will be playing a huge role on green-tops like Wanderers and Centurion. Apart from hitting the 140 km mark, they also need to bowl in the corridor of uncertainty around the off-stump line with both the old and new ball, to bring slip fielders more into the play.

Rohit or Hardik; another developing dilemma at number six: With the top half of the Indian batting being sorted out for the next few years, the spotlight will be on the late middle-order's composition, with the five-bowler strategy becoming a prevalent practice. Talking about India's lower order and South Africa tour, Swashbuckling all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be poised to play the fourth pacer's role. Also, he can truly establish himself in the international arena by reprising England all-rounder Ben Stoke's counter-attacking role under the same conditions two years back, where the latter demoralized Dale Steyn and Co. by scoring 411 runs in four Tests, with a strike rate of over 100.

On the other hand, Rohit Sharma, who had a run-feast against Sri Lanka last month will be looking to better his longer-format stats against Proteas (71 runs in previous eight innings). This can be only possible if Kohli and Co. go for six batters and one wicketkeeper on more lively conditions in Centurion and Wanderers. If both the Mumbai Indians teammate perform well, another healthy competition within the team will start too.