India’s tour of Sri Lanka is just a couple of days away from getting underway. The assignment comprises three T20Is followed by as many ODIs. For the record, Pallekele International Cricket Stadium will be hosting the T20I leg, whereas R. Premadasa Stadium will be hosting the ODI leg.
The first of the three-match T20I series will begin on July 27, Saturday. The second and third game will kick off on 28th and 30th of this month respectively. The upcoming assignment marks the debut of Gautam Gambhir as the new head coach of Team India.
It is expected that he will be fielding the best playing XI, with a view to kick-starting his national coaching venture on a strong note. Suryakumar Yadav will be leading the T20I team from the front, with Shubman Gill named as his deputy. In this listicle, let’s now take a look at India’s predicted XI for Sri Lanka T20Is.
Openers: Shubman Gill (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal
All eyes will be on Shubman Gill as he will be serving as the vice-captain in the shortest format. Although he hasn’t had the best of starts to his T20I career, time has probably come for him to break the shackles and shine in this format. It is worth noting that he did pretty well in the just-concluded Zimbabwe T20Is.
Under his captaincy, India won the series by 4-1. The youngster finished off as the leading run-scorer with 170 runs in five games. He played at a strike-rate of 125.93 at an average of 42.50. Gill will be opening the innings alongside Yashasvi Jaiswal. The right and left hand combination is expected to bore fruit.
On the other end of the spectrum, Jaiswal also played superbly well in T20I series against Zimbabwe. He finished the series as the second leading run-getter with 141 runs in three games. He maintained an exceptional batting average of 70, including two half-centuries.
Read more: SL vs IND 2024: 3 strange omissions from India’s T20I squad for Sri Lanka tour
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