Rain could play a spoil sport in the 5th ODI between India and Sri Lanka

Team India is gearing up to dust down another clean sweep while everything and pride are at stake for the Sri Lankan team. Amidst the anxiety among the fans and nervousness in the dressing room, the clouds are precipitating as well. It has been raining in Colombo since this morning and at 1 PM IST, an hour ahead of the scheduled start of play there is a thunderstorm forecast.

There is a cloud cover over the stadium with constant rain. All the corners of the ground have been secured by the grounds men including the entire outfield. According to the weathermen the level of precipitation would fluctuate between 90-100% right through the day with the temperature maintaining somewhere around 28-29° and a humidity level of 84-86%. Till about 4 PM, the forecast is for a thunderstorm which after that, changes to just rain amidst a strong wind of 20km/hr.

The fate of this match wouldn’t affect the outcome of the series while it is already in the bags of the Indians 4-0; the organizers had however made provisions of a reserve day for all the matches in the series. Thus if there is no play possible in the day or little to determine an outcome, the game would start or restart tomorrow i.e. September 4 at the same venue.

Team News

Team India will miss opener Shikhar Dhawan in the final ODI as he flew back home on Sunday to be with his mother who is recovering from an illness. This will open the gates for Ajinkya Rahane to get his first game in the series and take the opening slot, where he batted beautifully in West Indies. As for Sri Lanka, skipper Upul Tharanga having served the ban will return to the team and would want to charge his boys up to see if they can show sparks in the final match of the ODI series.

Predicted XI-

Sri Lanka:

Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Dilshan Munaweera, Kusal Mendis, Upul Tharanga (C), Angelo Mathews, Lahiru Thirimanne, Milinda Siriwardana, Akila Dananjaya, Dushmantha Chameera/Malinda Pushpakumara, Vishwa Fernando, Lasith Malinga

India:

Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli (C), KL Rahul, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah