When India plays Sri Lanka in the third One-Day International on Wednesday at the R Premadasa Stadium, they will want to avoid losing the series. India lost the second ODI by 32 runs after a rare tie in the first match. India haven’t lost an ODI series against Sri Lanka since August 1997. Sanath Jayasuriya, the current head coach of Sri Lanka, took the most wickets and scored the second most runs in that series.
India Haven’t Lost any Series In Sri Lanka
While they figured out how to tie the scores in the primary match, Rohit Sharma and Co. lost the second by 32 runs. India is known for not making too many changes during a series, regardless of the outcome, and it is reasonable to anticipate that they will continue to do so here. Notwithstanding, quite possibly they might decide to drop Shivam Dube and get Riyan Parag as an additional all-rounder who can bowl turn. This would imply that Parag would make his ODI debut.
Virat Kohli Looks Vulnerable In all Series
Team’s batting, on the other hand, would be a concern. Inquisitively, it was Virat Kohli who looked generally defenseless among the meeting hitters. Kohli has a broadly exceptional ODI record at the ground, breaking four successive hundreds of years here, but no part of that predominance has been on show so far from the previous India skipper. In two matches, he scored 38 runs, but his dismissals were more concerning than the runs themselves.
Middle Order Collapse Continued In India
Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul have also dominated spinners in the past, but against the Lankan slow bowlers here, their feet and wrists were unresponsive. They were also bad at rotating strike, something that Indian batters were proud of doing in one-day internationals, especially at the World Cup in 2023. They simply have to watch the batting of Rohit to track down a cure – not such a great amount in his methodology yet more in the certainty and arranging behind his thumps.
India likely XI
Batters – Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer
All-Rounders – Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Riyan Parag
Wicketkeeper – KL Rahul
Bowlers – Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav
