Daijiworld Media Network 

Feb 22: Today's encounter takes place at the 'G' one of the iconic venues in modern sport. 

Virat Kohli: 'A win against a team like South Africa will strengthen our immense self-belief that we can beat big sides in the knockout stages as well.'

India have won the toss and have opted to bat.

Teams:

South Africa (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock(w), Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers(c), David Miller, Jean-Paul Duminy, Wayne Parnell, Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir

India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ajinkya Rahane, MS Dhoni(w/c), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma

MS Dhoni: 'Well what we have done so far is get a couple of practice sessions in the middle, in between every alternate day was off for us. We have been here for a long time, what's important is to keep the guys fresh, but at the same time, whenever we turn up for a practice session we want it to be a high intensity practice session. It's a fantastic ground and the atmosphere is great over here. The capacity is good and when it comes to ODI cricket we have got plenty of fans irrespective of where we play. The stadium is slightly different from Adelaide, the reason being, I think the voices stay inside the stadium. So definitely it's a bit louder. There was more capacity crowd at Adelaide but yes it's a good atmosphere. I felt it was quite a complete performance. The batters batted really well, in these conditions, when you have not lost too many wickets close to the 25th or 26th over, you feel as if you need to go hard. You need to capitalise, so that you get into the powerplay with a few more wickets in hand and then accelerate after that. Looking at the conditions, that's the best bowling attack, unless the wicket is very different. Maybe a Perth wicket, where there is lot more bounce, that's the time, where we will look to change. Other than that we are playing with the same squad'

AB de Villiers: 'Hell of a exciting. As big a stage as you can get. India is a fantastic cricket team. We are as prepared as we could be. I sure enjoy it, it's a good opportunity for the team to reset and re-strategise again. Spend time away from cricket, which is always important and so very excited to get going again today and break it up again after the game. Probably gonna bat first as well. Not too unhappy though, the bowlers have been in good form of late. We have got a great opportunity here to make some inroads early on and hopefully put them under pressure. So one difficult thing about batting first here, is you don't often known what is gonna be enough on the day. Hopefully we can put them under enough pressure so that they stumble along the way. I don't know really, it's nice to know that you are in a good space as a team and you are in good form. People rate you as a cricket team, so I guess you can take the confidence from that. That comes with a bit of pressure, but look these tournaments are huge pressure tournaments, anyways. You cant' hide from the pressure and the fact that you gonna face some big moments. We are prepared for some big moments again today. For sure, wherever you go there always is big Indian support, for the team, it's great to see. It's great support for cricket here today. I can't imagine the stadium being full, it's not full yet. But we will see in half-an-hour's time or so. Get the juices flowing.'

Pitch report by Sourav Ganguly and Pommie Mbangwa: There is a fair bit of grass. It will be a lot quicker than what it was when Australia played England. The grass is quite green. The pitch looks hard and there will be pace and bounce through to the keeper. The key according to Mbangwa is to hit a back of a length and use the bounce on offer. There won't be much for the spinners. This is not a 300 pitch. Whichever team which wins the toss will look to bat first as there will be a lot of movement under the lights in the evening.

Our man, Raj at the venue has this: 'India playing football at the venue. South Africa are limbering up too. Also the Indian team are having their fielding practice in two groups'

So that will be a wrap of the pre-match build-up. Now our focus will be on the game.