India eye final berth as Sri Lanka challenge awaits

India will take the yard again in less than 24 hours’ time of their last game against Pakistan as Sri Lanka await them with another reckoning challenge, hoping to spoil the Men in Blue's party.

A victory against Sri Lanka can very well confirm India’s final berth as the Men in Blue soared up to the top of the points table with a mammoth NRR of +4.560 while Sri Lanka is next in the line. Hence, going by the points table, this can very well be the clash of the juggernauts.

India may make a few changes to the side considering the fact that the players will be hoping to get some rest ahead of their Bangladesh fixture after constant matches. Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma may have a day off but once again, Rahul Dravid would really like the two to continue with the new found momentum.

Sri Lanka, on the contrary, are the defending champions and obviously would be putting their best foot forward. Given their recent run of form and a convincing win against Bangladesh, they would like to showcase themselves once again to the world that they are here to stay.

Venue Watch:

After seeing the surface for the last two days, the toss would obviously play an important role. The team batting under the lights can very well be subjected to unthinkable torment as the ball was drifting around by miles. Hence, the team batting first will obviously have an added edge because the ball will be moving around slightly less.

Head to Head:

Matches played: 165

India – 96

Sri Lanka – 57

Match Details:

Match – India vs Sri Lanka

Venue: R Premadasa Stadium, Colombo

Date: 12th September, 2023

Time: 3:00 PM

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, K L Rahul (wk), Virat Kohli, Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, and Jasprit Bumrah.

Sri Lanka: Dasun Shanaka (c), Pathum Nissanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kusal Janith Perera, Kusal Mendis (vc), Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Maheesh Theekshana, Dunith Wellalage, Matheesha Pathirana, Kasun Rajitha, Dushan Hemantha, Binura Fernando, Pramod Madushan.