Sri Lanka have won the toss and chosen to bowl first against India in the second T20I at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Skipper Dasun Shanaka said that the pitch as covered the previous night and it might help the seamers at the start. For the hosts, Ramesh Mendis was handed his cap and they made one more change.
India, on the other hand, wanted to first. The COVID-19 situation has forced the Indian team to play all the 11 players remaining as Krunal Pandya and the eight other players have gone into isolation and will not be part of the remaining matches. Hence, India handed debuts to four players - Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Rana and pacer Chetan Sakariya.
Team India coach for the Sri Lanka tour, Rahul Dravid talking to the host broadcaster before the game, said that they had 11 players to choose from and they had to play them. Dravid said that there was nothing to feel sorry about as all 11 are good enough to play, which is why they were selected in the squad in the first place.
Playing XIs
Sri Lanka: Avishka Fernando, Minod Bhanuka (wk), Dhananjaya de Silva, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dasun Shanaka (c), Ramesh Mendis, Wanindu Hasaranga, Chamika Karunaratne, Isuru Udana, Akila Dananjaya, Dushmantha Chameera
India: Shikhar Dhawan, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Nitish Rana, Sanju Samson, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rahul Chahar, Chetan Sakariya, Varun Chakravarthy, Navdeep Saini, Kuldeep Yadav
