Mumbai: Team India decided to bat first in the final of the ICC T20 World Cup after Rohit Sharma won the toss against South Africa’s Aiden Markram.
Lady luck smiled on Rohit as he had lost the previous three tosses – against England in the semifinal, Australia and Bangladesh in Super 8s.
In each of those three games, the rival teams invited India to bat first and ended up on the losing side.
History, too, favours India as in 7 of the 8 previous T20 World Cup finals, the team winning the toss went on to lift the coveted Cup.
Champions in the inaugural edition in 2007, India are eyeing their second T20 World Cup title. The Proteas, on the other hand, are set to play their first ever World Cup final in any format.
India and South Africa are the only unbeaten teams in the tournament, having sailed through their respective semifinals against defending champions England and surprise package Afghanistan.
Both teams opted to field an unchanged XI for the battle royale.
PLAYING XIs
India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Shivam Dube, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah.
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Aiden Markram (capt), David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Tabraiz Shamsi.
