India v Sri Lanka, 2nd T20I: Sri Lanka Predicted XI

After losing the first game of the T20I series by a massive margin, Sri Lanka find themselves in a must-win situation as another defeat means they will lose one more limited-over series this year. The visitors looked unmatched facing a power-packed India back in Cuttack as they didn’t manage to match the home team in any facet of the game.

While they let India post a score in excess of 180 on a two-paced pitch, they performed poorly with the bat too despite a massive amount of dew on the ground which had made the job of Indian bowlers far tougher. Moving to Indore, Sri Lanka would like to reconsider the team combination. There are possibilities of one or two changes in their XI as they look to make a comeback and keep the series alive. Here is Sri Lanka’s predicted XI for the second T20I.

Openers (Upul Tharanga, Niroshan Dickwella)

While Sri Lanka have pushed Dickwella down the order in the 50-over cricket, he is still their preferred option to open the batting in the shortest format and that’s because he is a free-flowing player. He is very good at playing lofted drives and pick up shots and manages to find those boundaries initially in the power play to get the team off to a flier more often than not.

Upul Tharanga, on the other hand, is a little more sedate in comparison, but he is a real class player and does not miss out on putting the bad deliveries away. He is particularly strong square of the wicket on the off side and just pounces on anything loose in that region. He is a fine player of spin as well as he has got flexible wrists and knows how to manipulate the strike by working the ball into the gaps. Sri Lanka would like him to bat through the innings and play an anchor role.

Middle order (Dhananjaya de Silva, Angelo Mathews, Asela Gunaratne)

Dhananjaya de Silva was a strong candidate to be picked in the XI for the first game as well, but Sri Lanka decided to go with the explosive Kusal Janith Perera at the No. 3 position and the left-hander clearly looked undercooked. He did score 19 runs, but ate up too many deliveries and wasn’t able to provide impetus to the Sri Lankan innings in the middle overs. They may replace him with De Silva who has been in good form of late and will be high on confidence after scoring that hundred in the Delhi Test match.

Angelo Mathews was in fabulous form with the bat in the ODI series, but he failed to make a mark in Cuttack. He will bat at 4 and will like to hold the Sri Lankan innings together. He is an experienced batsman and has got a fair idea on how to pace the innings.

Asela Gunaratne is due for a big one and the team will expect he to finds form tomorrow as he is also an impact player and once he gets going, he can give a fair bit of a headache to the opposition captain with his wide range of shots.

All-rounders (Thisara Perera, Dasun Shanaka)

Captain Perera will have to raise his game and will have to lead from the front which he has not been able to do so far on this tour. While he was reasonable with the ball the other night, he registered another low score with the bat as he was dismissed playing a rank bad shot off the bowling of the leg-spinner Yuzvendra Chahal. He needs to tighten his game and show more smartness batting down the order.

Dasun Shanaka was Sri Lanka’s best batsman in the T20I series against Pakistan and while he had an off day yesterday, Sri Lanka will persist with him as he is a game changer. He has got the big shots against both quicks as well as spin bowlers and is the ideal personnel a team wants for the no. 7 spot.

Bowlers (Akila Dhananjaya, Sachith Pathirana, Nuwan Pradeep, Vishwa Fernando)

Sri Lanka played with three fast bowlers in the first game, but that move didn’t pay dividends as the trio of quicks gave away a total 92 runs in the 9 overs they bowled with Dushmantha Chameera being the most expensive. The visitors may want to replace Chameera with a spinner in the form of Sachith Pathirana who had been pretty decent with the ball in the ODI series and is quite handy with the bat too.

Nuwan Pradeep was also expensive in Cuttack, but he bowled some good back of the length deliveries and hurried the batsmen at times. Sri Lanka will definitely stick with him and in all likelihood, he will share the new ball with Vishwa Fernando.