KL Rahul took to tossing the coin with his left hand, and finally India won their first toss in 21 ODIs, their first since the 2023 World Cup semi-final in Mumbai. It was no surprise that India chose to field in the series decider although Rahul did say dew came in later during practice in Visakhapatnam than in Ranchi and Raipur.

India strengthened their batting with the introduction of Tilak Varma at the expense of Washington Sundar, who bowled only seven overs in the two ODIs. It leaves India with no sixth option with the ball.

South Africa, looking for a rare double of Test and ODI series wins on a single tour of India, were forced to make two changes. They lost Nandre Burger and Tony de Zorzi to hamstring injuries during the second ODI. Ryan Rickelton and Ottneil Baartman replaced them.

India 1 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 5 KL Rahul (capt. & wk), 6 Tilak Varma, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Harshit Rana, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Prasidh Krishna

South Africa 1 Ryan Rickelton, 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Temba Bavuma (capt.), 4 Matthew Breetzke, 5 Aiden Markram, 6 Dewald Brevis, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Corbin Bosch, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Ottneil Baartman