Even though Malan left the field with an injury in Paarl

There is no indication in the media at present of him being out of the remaining two remaining games in the ODI series against Australia - so he may yet play tomorrow or on Saturday. 

Yet the issue of an opening batsman to partner De Kock in the shorter versions of the game remains wide open,   Apparently the idea is to see what Malan produces in his next game if he did play in the present series, while going with Bavuma opening in the Indian tour matches, 

The other option remains Markram who on franchise level is producing top performances, but apparently he will be selected for the West Indies Tour,   

So back to the indian Tour matches,   That  may open the way for Du Plessis to come in and bat at 3 with the remainder of the team remaining unchanged bar for Shamsi being replaced by George Linde as the fifth Bowler,  

Perhaps it should be borne in mind that the batsmen with most experience on Indian pitches through the IPL may be in the batting line--up - namely De Kock, Du Plessis and Miller will be in the line-up, while Klaasen was contracted in the lPL - but rarely used in the past two years.   Klaasen is not on contract this year and Verreynne is the only batsmen without any experience in India on any level.         

Ngidi was contracted by the IPL and so was Nortje - but the latter was rarely used and Ngidi was injured last year and played virtually no cricket at all.   Neither of the two are on contract this year,                     

Malan went to India last year and struggled badly in the games he played in,  Maybe it was just the pitches or perhaps the spin bowling,   However, he is likely to play again. in thios series and in the Windies tour this year,     

He was in the SA "A" team playing two "A" level matches last year in India,   The surprising thing in those two matches was that the best performing SA player from both a batting and bowling perspective was Mulder,   I am still perplexed by the selection of some players.

They select players like Du Plessis who was -

*   average in the IPL last year;

*   slightly above average in the WC; and

*    a disaster in all games in 2019-20 summer season. 

I cannot see how a player being average in the IPL will be able to perform better in ODI's in India, .           

I've lost all confidence in the selectors....some of their selections are a joke in poor taste. Also read somewhere a comment made by Bouch….it went something like this...…"we've selected the best players"......really?! Not while you hang with the likes of Reeza Hendricks, Beuran Hendricks and Smuts, not sure about George Linde either his domestic average isn't flash.

What's JJ's average over the last 2 seasons only? Must surely be better than 35.?? 

Yes, Malan came good tonight...well done...JJ S wasn't bad though.