Sri Lanka vs India: Shaw, Padikkal or Ruturaj – Who should open with Shikhar Dhawan?

Sri Lanka vs India: The Indian national cricket team has been on a rising curve across all the formats through the support of young players, who have been impressive in their short careers. The IPL has been a platform which has flourished them and has thought them to handle the pressure situations. The Indian team played the WTC finals, primarily with the support of Pant, Thakur, and Sundar who have not much experience in the red-ball format but were impressive in the IPL and got an opportunity and proved themselves. The Sri Lanka tour curve will be a steep learning curve for the white-ball players as well.

Sri Lanka vs India: Who should open along with Dhawan?

The India tour of Sri Lanka will begin from 13 July with 3 ODI and 3 T20I scheduled to take place at Colombo. A total of 20 players have been selected for the series, with Chetan Sakariya, K Gowtham, Nitish Rana, Devdutt Padikkal, and Ruturaj Gaikwad being named for the first time to play for India.

The matter of concern for the management and captain will be which young player will perform the opening role. There are 3 options, Gaikwad, Shaw, and Padikkal who have been openers in the IPL for past 2 years. Let’s look at the List A  career of these batsmen.

P Shaw in List-A: 2211 Runs, AVG. 58.18 (3 ODI appearances)

D Padikkal in List-A: 1387 Runs, AVG. 86.68

R Gaikwad in List-A: 2681 Runs, AVG. 47.87

All the three batsmen have excellent track record, especially Padikkal who has been excellent over the past 2 years and has been a fine performer in the IPL as well. But Prithvi Shaw can be chosen to open due to his experience in the international cricket and advantage of bonding with Dhawan in Delhi Capitals that will clearly help the team in getting a stable start.

Read: England vs Sri Lanka: 3 Players SUSPENDED for Bio-Bubble Breach

SL vs IND schedule: Indian team reaches Colombo

The Indian team along with the net bowlers arrived in the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo after 14 days of quarantine in Mumbai.

The whole team will be in quarantine until 3 days,and can proceed to training from July 2 onwards.

Read: ICC confirms T20 World Cup dates, Venue, Check Details

India’s squad for tour of Sri Lanka

Shikhar Dhawan (Captain), Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Suryakumar Yadav, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Nitish Rana, Ishan Kishan (Wicket-keeper), Sanju Samson (Wicket-keeper), Yuzvendra Chahal, Rahul Chahar, K Gowtham, Krunal Pandya, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar (Vice-captain), Deepak Chahar, Navdeep Saini, Chetan Sakariya

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