England will face South Africa in the first T20I between the two sides on the tour. This game will the first international game of the long, two moth tour for England, which will have see two T20Is, five ODIs and four test matches played between the two sides.

The English side has made a good start to the tour by winning both their opening warm-up games against the Warriors and the Eagles in a rather convincing manner. More importantly, it is the fact that almost all their batsmen and bowlers had a decent outing, with Andrew Strauss leading from the front and hitting form immediately.

The game will be played at the Wanderers in Johannesburg, and it will be interesting to see the kind of playing eleven that the English team goes to the field with. Strauss should open the innings with Joe Denly, but the biggest piece of news that comes in for the English team is that Kevin Pietersen is fit and should be ready for the T20Is. This will make the English side much more potent that they were in the shorter format of the game against Australia. Pietersen should bat at the number three position.

Jonathon Trott should be selected as well, and as was evident in the Ashes, he will not be too nervous facing up to the South Africans. The one thing that he will definitely help doing is to overcome the pressure that Pietersen has had to face while playing in the country of his birth.

Amongst the bowling, James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann should be virtual certainties, with Paul Collingwood and Luke Wright filling in for the fifth bowler's spot. It would then be a tight battle between Graham Onions, Tim Bresnan and Sajid Mahmood for the fourth bowling option.

For the South Africans, they have a newish-looking T20Is squad as well. Herschelle Gibbs has been dropped due to bad form, and Loots Bosman could open the innings with Smith. Ryan McLaren has been chosen in the squad too and his all round skills would give Albie Morkel, a run for his money while Yusuf Abdullah makes a comeback after being in the side during the ICC World T20.

Johan Botha's action has been cleared by his own cricket board along with the ICC, while Charl Langeveldt makes a much vaunted return to the side.

All in all, it should be an exciting contest, with the hosts having a slight advantage over the visitors.

Tag :- Andrew Strauss   England   Herschelle Gibbs   James Anderson   Kevin Pietersen   Paul Collingwood   South Africa   Yusuf Abdullah