This comes as a huge blow to the hosts as they look to maintain their winning runs against Virat Kohli and Co on home soil.
Free-scoring batsman AB de Villiers has been ruled out of the first three one-day internationals against India through injury, Cricket South Africa (CSA) announced on Tuesday. This comes as a huge blow to the hosts as they look to maintain their winning run against Virat Kohli and Co on home soil.
De Villiers bruised an index finger attempting to take a catch in the 63-run defeat in the third test against the tourists in Johannesburg. He will need at least two weeks for a full recovery, ruling him out of the 50-over ODIs in Durban, Pretoria and Cape Town, starting on Thursday.
De Villiers has scored 9,515 runs in 225 ODIs at an average of more than 54 and a strike rate of 101. He holds the record for the fastest century in the format, reaching the milestone off only 31 balls against the West Indies in 2015. More than anything, ABD possesses the ability to turn the match in his team's favour from any given situation. With India relying heavily on talismanic batsman Kohli, South Africa will surely miss their own star batsman.
The South Africa selectors have not named a replacement. The CSA medical team hopeful that the star batsman would be fit in time to play fourth 'Pink' ODI on February 10.
The six-match ODI series between India and South Africa is slated to be held from Thursday at Sahara Stadium Kingsmead.
The two squads are as follows
South Africa: Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla, Quinton de Kock , AB de Villiers, JP Duminy , Imran Tahir , Aiden Markram, David Miller, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris , Lungisani Ngidi , Andile Phehlukwayo , Kagiso Rabada , Tabraiz Shamsi, Khayelihle Zondo.
India: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicketkeeper), Axar Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.
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