MUMBAI: Murali Vijay and KL Rahul , the two specialist openers from south, will open batting for India in the first Test at Cape Town starting January 5 in the series against South Africa. TOI can confirm that Delhi batsman Shikhar Dhawan , who injured his ankle on Tuesday, the same evening when India skipper Virat Kohli hosted his wedding reception in Mumbai, has been ruled out.Those in the know of things said the captain expressed his disappointment in Dhawan "not being careful" ahead of some hectic travel.The team management, nevertheless, is not overtly worried about Dhawan missing out, considering Vijay is among the only three cricketers in this team that played the 2010-11 series in South Africa where they won the second Test in Durban by 87 runs.While Dhawan has time until January 10 to recover and stay in contention for the second Test at the Wanderers, Johannesburg, Vijay and Rahul will now have to deal with the all-important task of denying the South African attack - consisting Morkel Rabada and Steyn - any early initiative.It is in this regard that Team India has successfully managed to pull off a strategy they have been trying to put in place on away tours for quite a few years now.The team management had specifically made a request - not for the first time - to be allowed to practice on the centre wicket, instead of the option of training in the nets."When MS Dhoni was the captain, he would keep on making this request and BCCI would carry it forward. But every time, the request would be denied. In fact, India had made the same request to Cricket South Africa in 2013-14 too but they had denied it. This time they have agreed," sources told TOI.On December 11, Cricket South Africa had sent out a statement saying India's two-day warm-up match at the Boland Park would no longer be taking place. "India have opted for a training session on those two days," CSA had said.This was soon after CSA agreed to BCCI's request to make the Boland Park centre wicket available to the Indian team.The Indian team management, which is travelling with four extra pace bowlers to help them out in the nets, is focused on using the centre wicket to replicate match situations, which they think could be more useful than just playing local SA nets bowlers.