Steyn out as Proteas open up against the favourites

With stalwarts Graeme Smith and Jacques Kallis absent from the Proteas’ squad, the experience of fast bowler Steyn is set to be key to South Africa’s hopes of winning the competition’s final edition.

But the 29-year-old suffered a side strain in the warm-up defeat against Pakistan and, while he has not been completely ruled out of the Group B meeting in south Wales, captain AB de Villiers admits it would be foolish to potentially risk further damage.

He said: “It’s obviously not looking good, but we will re-assess him tonight and tomorrow morning and make a final call on that. It is touch-and-go and it is obviously an issue and it is something we will have to look at.

“There are a few more games coming up, this is not our one and only game, so we wouldn’t like him to be ruled out of the rest of the tournament.”

Tuesday’s warm-up match in Cardiff saw Australia and India both lose a number of early wickets, although the Indians did at least manage to recover to make 308-8, while Australia were dismissed for just 65.

India enter the tournament as the reigning World Cup winners in the 50-over format, and are expected to feature strongly again. Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni has no doubt his side can cope with the pressure and their status as the best-supported team outside of the host nation.

He said: “When you have fans people talk about the burden of expectation and in the Indian cricket team there are no situations where there is no pressure or expectation from the fans following us.

“When we play warm-up games we are expected to win, even though it is about getting the most out of them.

“If we don’t win warm-up games people say ‘they only win the big games’, and when you do win it they say ‘it’s only a warm-up game so it doesn’t matter’.

“We always welcome this double-edged sword, we just have to balance it in the right way.”

Dinesh Karthik enters the contest with the Proteas on the back of consecutive centuries.

Dhoni said: “I always believe he is someone who can bat really, really well in the middle order, because he is a good runner. He reads the situation pretty well and is someone who can look to go on and play big innings.”