Proteas looking to heat things up in chilly Dharamsala

The Proteas are in the rarefied thin air of Dharamsala for the third T20I against India. 

At 1 457 metres above sea level, and situated in the picturesque snow-capped Himalayan mountains, it is one of the coldest cricket grounds in the world with temperatures hovering around five degrees Celsius. 

“It is really cold,” Proteas coach Shukri Conrad admitted. “But look, it's a wonderful place here. 

“We're staying up in the mountain there, looking down here. This morning, I was up early enough to experience that cold as well.

“But look, it's all part of taking in the experience of touring here, coming to a wonderful place like this. I've had to cancel a meeting because some of our guys are on a hike, still caught in the mountains somewhere. But a wonderful place.”

The mercury levels will heat up a bit when the action gets underway on Sunday (3:30pm) with these two once again proving rather difficult to separate. After India romped to a convincing 105-run victory in the first match in Cuttack, the Proteas bounced back with an equally impressive 51-run triumph in the New Chandigarh a couple of days later to level the series at 1-1. 

Dharamsala has previously been a happy hunting ground for the visitors after the Proteas successfully chased down 200 against India in a T20I here a decade ago. 

With it also being a traditionally heavy-scoring ground, the Proteas are hoping to carry that momentum through to this all-important clash of the series. 

“Look, it's always nice getting a win and it does raise the confidence, especially after how the first match went,” Conrad said. 

“But again, I think sometimes you come to a ground where historically the scores are quite high and you feel that you need to be pitching at a certain mark and then you find yourself in a little bit of trouble. 

“So again, we certainly don't have any specific target in mind in terms of where we want to reach as a batting unit. But we're pretty confident in our all-round game.”

Conrad has adopted a flexible approach to his starting XI, despite the T20 World Cup being just a couple of months away. He explained that it's all part of the greater plan. 

“It might look as if we're slightly unsure given the amount of changes we make every match,” he explained. “But it's certainly not changes for the sake of being changes. 

“We have a pretty good idea of what our World Cup squad will be like. Again, it's really just managing players. There are a few guys that have been here since the Test Series. And then we've also got SA20 after this. So really just about managing players.

“And then also giving everybody a good run. See what works here, what doesn't work. But yeah, we're pretty clear in terms of what we want.”

SQUADS FOR DHARAMSALA

Proteas: Aiden Markram (captain), Ottneil Baartman, Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Quinton de Kock, Donovan Ferreira, Reeza Hendricks, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, George Linde, Lutho Sipamla, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Tristan Stubbs.

India: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sanju Samson (wicket-keeper), Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Washington Sundar.

Start: 3:30pm