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| Suresh Raina watches as MS Dhoni bats at the nets ahead of the India-Sri Lanka encounter in Dambulla |
MS Dhoni's luckless run with the toss continued and Sri Lanka opted to bat in slightly windy conditions in Dambulla. India, smarting from a humiliating defeat in their opening game, were without Yuvraj Singh, who was diagnosed with dengue on the eve of the game, and Virat Kohli has replaced him. India also left out Abhimanyu Mithun, who had suffered a heat stroke, allowing Ishant Sharma to return to the XI. Ashish Nehra was a doubtful starter for this game but he was passed fit.The hosts, expecting some seam movement later in the day, left out the spin pair of Rangana Herath and Ajantha Mendis, and went in with an extra seamer in Dilhara Fernando. Offspinner Suraj Randiv, who grabbed nine wickets in the third Test against India at the P Sara Oval, was their sole frontline spinner for this game.
Sri Lanka: 1 Upul Tharanga, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt and wk), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Chamara Kapugedera, 7 Angelo Mathews, 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Suraj Randiv, 10 Lasith Malinga, 11 Dilhara Fernando.
India: 1 Dinesh Karthik, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Suresh Raina, 5 Rohit Sharma, 6 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Ishant Sharma, 10 Ashish Nehra, 11 Pragyan Ojha.
