Chasing an elusive dream of winning their first ever Test match in India, Sri Lanka will begin their tour with a two-day tour fixture against a depleted Board President’s XI on Saturday.
Chandimal and Co. will hope to start well against a third-string Board’s side led by Sanju Samson. The match is scheduled at the Jadavpur University second campus ground, the deck of which primarily supports seam bowling.
Though, BCCI has opted for a fourth-string team primarily comprising of players from — Hyderabad, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab who are not featuring in the ongoing fifth round of the domestic tournament. Apart from Captain Sanju Samson, Jalaj Saxena all other players are little known. BCCI could have easily selected players like Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Mohhamad Siraj to give them great opportunity to play against World class players like Angelo Mathews, Rangana Herath and Dinesh Chandimal. Instead, they have selected a junior level side.
In such a scenario, it will hardly give Sri Lanka a perfect build up. For Sri Lanka the spotlight will be on all rounder Mathews who will make a return after missing the entire series against Pakistan due to a calf muscle injury.
After playing the first Test in Kolkata from November 16-20, the teams move to Nagpur for the second, which starts on November 24. The final Test will be played in Delhi between December 2-6.
The last time Sri Lanka played test matches in India was seven years back in 2009, a three-match series, that they lost 0-2.
They have a forgettable record in the India, as they are yet to win a test and have suffered 10 defeats from 16 matches, between 1982-2017.
