Will South Africa take the attack to the Indian spinners like they did at the Wanderers?

After being overwhelmed by India's wrist spinners for three straight games, South Africa found a way to win. Or India found ways to slip up. It wasn't exactly clear which. In Johannesburg's summer rain, the hosts had a friend in need. That coupled with a gung-ho approach to a shortened chase and India's ill-discipline on the field put an end to the tourists' four-match winning streak.

But it is still 3-1 to India and that is reason (not like he needs one) for Virat Kohli to talk up the his team's confidence levels. With belief coursing through the squad and two more opportunities to seal the rubber, the visitors remain in pole position to complete that unprecedented bilateral series win in South Africa. However, the game at the Wanderers brought to light a chink in their supposedly fail-proof ODI methods: On its day, the middle-order can prove to be crumbly even after a well-laid Kohli-Dhawan platform. Personnel as experienced as Ajinkya Rahane and MS Dhoni are still finding a way around their shortcomings - read power-hitting - to play the roles assigned to them.

South Africa, by contrast, have received a welcome fillip from their own middle-order. AB de Villiers tested Yuzvendra Chahal's famed ability to keep flighting the ball under duress and sowed seeds of doubts in the leggie's mind. Heinrich Klaasen picked his scoring areas methodically. What the de Villiers-Miller-Klaasen axis has done by taking the attack to Kuldeep Yadav and Chahal is that India no longer expect easy access to the spoils as the earlier games may have promised them. This rarefied atmosphere plays to South Africa's hands, who are down on the scoreboard but aren't quite out. They cannot win the series and that frees them up for the proverbial 'express yourself on the field' exercise.

If Aiden Markram's men can tap into the prevailing mood of relief and push the series into Game 6, they'll have majorly transferred the pressure. If not, then they'll have to contend with the heartbreak of a series loss on Valentine's eve.

When: South Africa vs India, 5th ODI, February 13, 13:00 Local, 16:30 IST

Where: St. George's Park, Port Elizabeth

What to expect: It was overcast and windy on the day before the match and according to the local weather expert, it is expected to rain on Monday night until the morning of the game. Port Elizabeth pitches often make batsmen work hard for their runs. The last two first-innings totals scored in ODIs are 181 and 167. In the two games played in the domestic ODI cup this season, Imran Tahir has grabbed a fifer and left-arm orthodox spinner JJ Smuts was among the wickets. There's a little layer of grass on match eve meant to aid carry. But the pitch is famous for playing slow and so India's wrist spinners could once again be licking their lips in anticipation after a rather rude shake-up at the Wanderers.

Team News

India: The visitors have Kohli (393 at 196.50) and Dhawan (271 at 90.33) in one of the deepest shades of a purple patch. However, Rohit Sharma, the other member of the batting triumvirate, is in the middle of another horror tour to South Africa. He has managed a top score of 47 and been dismissed by Kagiso Rabada six times from eight innings. While a contribution from the vice-captain and one of India's serial big-hitter is due, India will also cast introspective glances at the middle-order, its composition and how best to get it to work in a way that can complement the heavy artillery at the top.

India were hamstrung by Kedar Jadhav's absence in Johannesburg, leaving them with exactly five bowling options. Shreyas Iyer has bowled leg breaks in the nets and deserves more than one odd chance in the eleven. But if India believe the track will turn, they could throw in spinning all-rounder Axar Patel to the line-up at the cost of forcing the batters to take up additional responsibility. Meanwhile, the loss at the Wanderers will not allow India to rest Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Jasprit Bumrah just yet, with the former appearing to operating on fumes at the fag end of a physically draining tour.

Probable XI: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat Kohli (c), Ajinkya Rahane, Shreyas Iyer/Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah

South Africa: The hosts have identified the sweep - of all kinds - to be one way to tackle the wrist spinners and it's a ploy Klaasen said "could" work. At the nets AB de Villiers indulged himself in a series of slog and reverse sweeps. It'll be his role to put pressure on Kuldeep and Chahal early on. The hosts can afford to make one conditions-enforced change here and sacrifice either Lungi Ngidi or Andile Phehlukwayo for a spinner. Whether that spinner is Imran Tahir or the in-form Tabraiz Shamsi remains to be seen.

Probable XI: Hashim Amla, Aiden Markram (c), JP Duminy, AB de Villiers, David Miller, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Morne Morkel, Lungi Ngidi/Imran Tahir

Did you know?

- India have lost all their five ODIs at Port Elizabeth - four against South Africa and one against Kenya. At no other venue have they played more than two ODIs without winning at least one.

- MS Dhoni needs 46 more runs to become the 12th player to reach 10,000 runs in ODIs. He will be the fourth from India to reach the landmark after Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid.

- The most wickets taken by spinners for India in a bilateral series is 27 in the six-match series against England at home in 2006. Yuzuvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have taken 12 wickets each so far from the first four ODIs.

- Virat Kohli needs 62 more runs to go past Kevin Pietersen's tally of 454 runs (six innings) to become the leading run-scorer in a bilateral series on South African soil.

What they said:

"We want more finishers, we want to train and groom more finishers. At the same time we also want our 5,6,7 to be able to go in and learn the situation and adapt to it. That is why you see the rotation, but very soon I think we'll be settling into a fixed 5,6,7 as we get closer to the World Cup." - R. Sridhar

"It would be really nice to expose their middle order and hopefully see what they can do. At the same time we don't want to really look too forward. We still want to focus on the small things that we can do, execute your skills and worry about one ball at a time" - Andile Phehlukwayo.