After a cracking Johannesburg Test, the big challenge for the teams in Durban is whether they can recover from the emotional and physical drain of that humdinger. MS Dhoni won his second toss in a row and chose to bat on a dry Durban track which is no longer resembling the brutish old Kingsmead surface of a decade or so ago.

India made one, somewhat unexpected, change as R Ashwin, who last month became the fastest man to 100 Test wickets in over 80 years, paid the price for an ineffective final day in Johannesburg, losing his place to left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja. It caps an astonishing resurgence for Jadeja, who has gone from joke-worthy discard to lead Test spinner in a little over a year.

South Africa also made a change to their spin department, not an unexpected one, as Robin Peterson replaced Imran Tahir, who had a horror week at the Wanderers.

While there will be debate over whether Peterson will bring more to the attack, what will definitely make South Africa more potent is the astonishingly quick return to fitness of Morne Morkel from an ankle strain. On the fourth day of the first Test, Morkel tweeted a photo of a hideously swollen ankle, but in what even South Africa captain Graeme Smith called a 'miracle', he is fit for Durban. If Morkel's fitness doesn't hold up over the Test, Jacques Kallis could have a heavy workload in what will be his farewell game.

South Africa: 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 Alviro Petersen, 3 Hashim Amla 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 AB de Villiers (wk), 6 Faf du Plessis, 7 JP Duminy 8 Robin Peterson, 9 Vernon Philander, 10 Dale Steyn, 11 Morne Morkel

India: 1 M Vijay, 2 Shikhar Dhawan, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4 Virat Kohli, 5 Rohit Sharma, 6 Ajinkya Rahane, 7 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 8 Ravindra Jadeja, 9 Ishant Sharma, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Mohammed Shami