Toss: India chose to bowl v Sri Lanka
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KL Rahul came in for Ajinkya Rahane after sitting out the fifth ODI © AFP
With the start delayed by 40 minutes and rain likely to remain an influence on the one-off T20I, Virat Kohli, India’s captain, chose to bowl at the Premadasa Stadium, where a hard pitch is likely to encourage run-scoring.
India made two changes to their XI from the fifth and final ODI, with KL Rahul and Axar Patel replacing Ajinkya Rahane and Shardul Thakur. This meant they played three frontline spinners in Axar, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal, and for the second successive game left out the allrounder Hardik Pandya.
Sri Lanka, who named a T20I squad full of specialists, brought in five players who played no part in the Tests and ODIs: Ashan Priyanjan, Dasun Shanaka, Seekkuge Prasanna, Thisara Perera and Isuru Udana.
Sri Lanka: 1 Niroshan Dickwella (wk), 2 Upul Tharanga (capt), 3 Dilshan Munaweera, 4 Ashan Priyanjan, 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Dasun Shanaka, 7 Seekkuge Prasanna, 8 Thisara Perera, 9 Akila Dananjaya, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Isuru Udana.
India: 1 Virat Kohli (capt), 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 KL Rahul, 4 Manish Pandey, 5 MS Dhoni (wk), 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Yuzvendra Chahal.
Karthik Krishnaswamy is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo