South African captain AB de Villiers won the toss and decided to bowl against India in the last Super Eights group two match at Colombo's Premadasa stadium on Tuesday.
India need to beat South Africa, who are already out of the contention for semi-finals, by a big margin to harbour any hopes of reaching the last four stage.
Earlier, Australia qualified for the semi-finals on better net run-rate despite losing their last Super Eights match against Pakistan by 32 runs.
Pakistan finished the Super Eights stage with two wins out of three, after losing to arch-rivals India by eight wickets in their second game on Sunday.
Hosts Sri Lanka and the West Indies have qualified for the last four from group one.
Team
India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ravichandran Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma, Lakshmipathy Balaji.
South Africa: AB de Villiers (capt), Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, Farhaan Behardien, Johan Botha, JP Duminy, Jacques Kallis, Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel, Robin Peterson, Dale Steyn.