A total of 4 players have debuted for India in the second game vs Sri Lanka. In absence of as many as 9 regular players, the Indian team had no choice but to play all the remaining fit players. Interestingly only 11 players were remaining for the Indian team. Consequently each of them were drafted into the playing 11 even at the expense of team balance.
The 4 debutants for India are Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Chetan Sakariya and Nitish Rana. While Gaikwad, Padikkal and Rana are batsmen, Sakariya is the bowler. Furthermore India are playing this game with just 5 specialist batsmen. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar will bat at number 6 in this match when his usual batting position is number 9!
Dhawan gets determined and says – We are street-smart!
At the toss, Sri Lankan captain won and decided to field first. When Dhawan was asked about the conditions in which he had to lead the side, he said :
“We would have batted first, so I’m happy with it. There are four debutants. Lots of changes due to obvious reasons. We’re all looking forward to this. We’re street-fighters and ready to face the challenges. Our main players aren’t here, but that gives the chance to the younger players. They have created great energy for the last 45 days, and I’m glad they have got their chances. These things can happen in the current scenario, that’s why we brought a large squad”.
The playing eleven of both the teams are :
India : Shikhar Dhawan (capt), 2 Ruturaj Gaikwad, 3 Devdutt Padikkal, 4 Sanju Samson (wk), 5 Nitish Rana, 6 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 7 Kuldeep Yadav, 8 Rahul Chahar, 9 Navdeep Saini, 10 Chetan Sakariya, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
Sri Lanka: 1 Avishka Fernando, 2 Minod Bhanuka (wk), 3 Sadeera Samarawickrama, 4 Dhananjaya de Silva, 5 Ramesh Mendis, 6 Dasun Shanaka (capt), 7 Wanindu Hasaranga, 8 Chamika Karunaratne, 9 Isuru Udana, 10 Dushmantha Chameera, 11 Akila Dananjaya.
The hosts Sri Lanka needs to win the match to stay alive in the series.
