For the first time in history, Indian cricket fans will witness two different Indian cricket teams simultaneously. While the Test side, under Virat Kohli, is in England for a five-match series, a team of white-ball players, under Shikhar Dhawan, is in Sri Lanka for three ODIs and as many T20Is, starting from July 18. Nevertheless, the squad for the Sri Lanka series is missing many prominent names, and it would be interesting to see how the Men in Blue perform.

Speaking of Sri Lanka, they are fresh from a clean sweep in England in both the ODI and T20I series. However, they should leave no stone unturned to defeat this second string Indian team which is missing most of it’s big players. Sri Lanka hasn’t had any great success in the past few years and a victory against the Indian side will boost their confidence ahead of the T20I World Cup held later this year.

Veteran opener Shikhar Dhawan is leading this team and pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been named his deputy. Prithvi Shaw, Navdeep Saini and Sanju Samson are back in Indian colors. Youngsters Devdutt Padikkal, Chetan Sakariya and Ruturaj Gaikwad received their maiden call up due to their impactful performance in the domestic season and in the Indian Premier League. The experienced players include Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Manish Pandey and Hardik Pandya. Even this second string side looks strong, balanced and India start the series as favourites.

As for Sri Lanka, they need to put their best foot forward in order to challenge this new Indian team. Wicketkeeper-batsman Kusal Perera was the captain of this team, but is ruled out from the series as he sprained his shoulder while training. A replacement hasn’t been announced yet and this injury will be a major set back for the Sri Lankan team as it is missing several of it’s veterans like Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal haven’t played white ball cricket for their national team for a while.

Sri Lanka will be looking to its young players like Dhananjaya de Silva, Wanindu Hasaranga and Avishka Fernando as they have been impressive for their side lately. Despite all this, Sri Lanka will be starting the tour as underdogs and will be aiming to defeat this young Indian side in both ODIs and T20Is. The first ODI will be start on Sunday, July 18 2021,3:00 PM IST and the remaining ODIs will take place on 20, 23 July respectively.