Kamil Mishara will debut for Sri Lanka, while Pasindu Sooriyabandara keeps his place after coming on as a concussion substitute in Galle
Saransh Jain poses with his debut cap • BCCI
India chose to bat vs Sri Lanka
India won the toss and decided to bat first in the second Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo, as Sri Lanka seek to draw level in the two-match series.
Shubman Gill had no hesitation in batting first, and his counterpart Dhananjaya de Silva conceded he would have done the same. With a bit of cloud cover and some grass on the surface, Dhananjaya was however hopeful of making use of any early movement on offer.
In terms of team news, both sides have debutants. For Sri Lanka, Kamil Mishara takes his first steps in the Test side on the back of some scintillating recent form, albeit in the white-ball formats. Pasindu Sooriyabandara has also been given an opportunity to avenge his golden duck in the first Test, where he entered as a concussion substitute for Dinesh Chandimal.
India meanwhile have made just the one change, with the speculation finally confirmed that debutant offspinner Saransh Jain will be replacing Kuldeep Yadav. The official reasoning from the Indian camp is that Kuldeep was unavailable for selection having not recovered from a viral illness.
The weather to start things of in Colombo is bright and sunny, though there is some rain expected across this Test. It’s hot and humid as well, even more so than in Galle, which means that the surface is expected to be on the drier side. The SSC surface usually starts to take turn pretty soon in any case.
Sri Lanka XI: 1 Lahiru Udara, 2 Kamil Mishara, 3 Kamindu Mendis, 4 Dhananjaya de Silva (capt.), 5 Sonal Dinusha, 6 Pasindu Sooriyabandara 7 Niroshan Dickwella (wk), 8 Keshara Nuwantha, 9 Prabath Jayasuriya, 10 Asitha Fernando, 11 Lahiru Kumara
India XI: 1 KL Rahul, 2 Yashasvi Jaiswal, 3 Devdutt Padikkal, 4 Shubman Gill (capt.), 5 Rishabh Pant (wk), 6 Dhruv Jurel, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Manav Suthar, 9 Saransh Jain, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna
