Starting two hours early is a solution for dew: ten Doeschate

India have had rotten luck with the coin. So much so that they've lost the last 20 tosses in ODIs alone - a sequence that has a statistical probability of one in a million. Come Visakhapatnam, where India and South Africa arrive with the ODI series on the line, the toss is set to play a crucial role with the amount of dew that sets in during the second innings.

"The biggest challenge, again, is going to be sort of the disparity between batting first and batting second," said India's assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate ahead of the third ODI. "I think it's becoming more prominent in one-day cricket, and that is the real challenge right there."

India saw firsthand at Raipur how dew could foil their plans. South Africa overhauled a massive 359-run target, the joint most against India, as the Indian bowlers struggled with the wet ball. "The dew factor is so big, yeah, it's obviously not our fault, but it is our responsibility to find a way to get around that," admitted ten Doeschate.

Could there potentially be an external solution? "The fact that the dew kind of falls as the second-inning starts. It means that the dew is there for the whole time, so a different start time could bring that effect down a little bit," ten Doeschate said. "If you started two hours early, that is a solution," he added but with so many stakeholders and moving parts, ten Doeschate was quick to concede that "that's a futile conversation".

In Visakhapatnam, where teams batting second won all five games in the recently concluded Women's World Cup, the dew factor could weigh in heavier still. "I'll be very surprised if anyone wins the toss and decides not to chase here," ten Doeschate said.

The added pressure of a decider will mean KL Rahul will walk out to the toss having exhausted all three genie wishes on the coin landing in his favour but ten Doeschate said India will remain focused on the process.

"You know, a bilateral series, when the series is on the line, that is an element of pressure there in itself. But, you know, we try to focus on the process, we try to assess what's going to be a good score, and then the batting unit has to go about getting it," said ten Doeschate.

"We always want to win, but certainly when a few losses do start stacking up and performances have been below what we expect from ourselves, yeah, I think there's a slight desperation to win the series tomorrow."

Thus, India battle expectation and desperation to ensure that their fate isn't at the mercy of the coin.