Kohli and Rohit set eyes on respective landmarks as Sri Lanka seeks revenge

In a tale of two contrasting teams that are well accustomed to the turning ilk of Indian pitches, India will be playing a hostile host to Sri Lanka who has been in the midst of some intense cricketing action of late.

Ever since their Australian tour kicked off, the Sri Lankan side has savored a good deal of cricket and that too with a couple of top cricketing nations.

As Mohali gears up for one of the most remarkable Test matches in India’s glittering antiquity that would witness Rohit Sharma taking over the reins of the Indian cricket team for the first time while Virat Kohli will be taking the field for the hundredth Test.

It will be a brilliant contest of two excellent players of spin with Indian surfaces being overtly magnanimous towards the turners. India will be taking the field for the first time without either of their top two middle-order batters namely Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara.

After quite a while, the iconic spinning duo of Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will be back in action ever since the latter copped a serious injury during New Zealand’s tour of India.

Another big name that will have the limelight on him is Lasith Embuldeniya who has claimed five fifers in the first 13 Test matches of his career. Sri Lanka will be coming to this contest with a couple of more exciting names with incredible figures next to their names. Praveen Jayawickrama is currently averaging 18 in the three Test matches that he has played while Pathum Nissanka’s first-class average reads a stunning 63.47.

As the two teams engage in a heated battle at Mohali, for the first time in the last two years, it will be a ferocious stramash of the willow and the leather of two old rivals, seeking to battle it out for continental pride.

Team news:

Both the teams will be coming to this contest with more or less an entire setup. Sri Lanka, however, will be missing out on the likes of their primary spinner Wanindu Hasaranga as he is still to test negative from his earlier Covid infection.

India will be without Suryakumar Yadav and Deepak Chahar who picked up unfortunate injuries in the preceding contests. Sri Lanka will be deprived of their star batter, Kusal Mendis who is still to gain full fitness. In all probability, Dusmantha Chameera will also not be starring in the first Test while Niroshan Dickwella will be returning to the wicket-keeping onus.

Match details:

India vs Sri Lanka (1st Test, Test series)

Punjab Cricket Association Stadium, Mohali

4th March – 8th March

9:30 AM

Head-to-head:

Total matches: 44

India: 20

Sri Lanka: 7

Draws: 17

Stats:

If Virat manages to score 38 more runs, he will be racking up a massive feat of scoring 8000 runs in Test cricket and in the process will be becoming the 14th fastest player to do it and the 29th overall to rack up this amazing milestone.

Ravichandran Ashwin will have his eyes set on the remarkable milestone of surpassing the likes of Richard Hadlee and Dale Steyn to become the eighth highest wicket-taker in Test cricket.

Virat Kohli is the leading run-scorer in the current set of active players who will be starring in the infamous rivalry of the continental neighbors with 1004 runs.

It has been a spinner’s paradise whenever these two teams have met as Anil Kumble, Muthiah Muralitharan and Harbhajan Singh are the only bowlers to claim 10 wickets in a match more than once in this rivalry.

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (Captain), Mayank Agarwal, Priyank Panchal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Hanuma Vihari, Shubman Gill, R Pant, KS Bharat, Ravichandran Ashwin (subject to fitness), Ravindra Jadeja, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, J Bumrah (VC), Mohammad Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Saurabh Kumar

Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (Captain), Pathum Nissanka, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dhananjaya de Silva (VC), Kusal Mendis*, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Charith Asalanka, Niroshan Dickwella, Chamika Karunaratne, Ramesh Mendis – will not take part due to an injury, Lahiru Kumara, Suranga Lakmal, Dushmantha Chameera, Vishwa Fernando, Jeffrey Vandersay, Praveen Jayawickrema, Lasith Embuldeniya.