India idyllic, South Africa stressed ahead of ODI series

Seldom has background noise dominated the foreground of a series as completely as it has ahead of the three ODIs India and South Africa will play from Thursday to Tuesday.

The looming men's T20 World Cup means none of India's squad for that tournament - except for reserve players - will be involved, and Jasprit Bumrah is out for six weeks with a back injury. And that's not the half of it: South Africa go into the rubber under a sky swirling with dark clouds.

The visitors have been in freefall from the last two matches of their Test series in England, which ended last month in the shadow of the death of Elizabeth II. Dean Elgar's team lost those games in three and two days, and Temba Bavuma's side were whipped so soundly by the Indians in the first T20I in Thiruvananthapuram last Wednesday that their loss in the second, albeit by a smaller margin, in Guwahati four days later was hailed as a recovery. That made the third match in Indore on Tuesday irrelevant, along with South Africa's too little, too late win.

But their supporters will hope that that success, as meaningless as it was, sparks more of the same in the ODI series. It must if South Africa's fading chances of qualifying directly for next year's ODI World Cup in India aren't to flicker to insignificance. They are currently above only Zimbabwe and the Netherlands in the 13-team Super League standings, which will determine the eight sides who will earn automatic entry to the tournament.

Even if South Africa win all eight of their remaining World Cup Super League matches - the three in India and five at home against the Netherlands and England - they will have 129 points. Log leaders England already have 125 points with six games left. Australia, Bangladesh and Pakistan also have six games left, and 120 points each. As hosts, sixth-placed India don't need to worry about the standings.

That means South Africa are probably competing for one of the three remaining berths, which currently are filled by New Zealand, Afghanistan and West Indies - who have between 61 and 39 more points than Bavuma's team. New Zealand have nine more ODIs to seal their spot and Afghanistan a dozen, and West Indies have played all of their 24 matches. Whichever way that equation is tilted, South Africa will find it tough to avoid having to secure one of the two World Cup spots reserved for the finalists at a qualifier in Zimbabwe in June and July. For a team who have been to every World Cup from 1992, that would be humiliating.

As if all that wasn't enough to shake the South Africans' focus from trying to play their best cricket, they are also navigating two elephants in their dressing room. The news, broken by Cricbuzz on September 12, that Mark Boucher would