Team India will play the first match of the year 2023 against Sri Lanka today. The first match of the three-match T20 series will be played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai from 7:00 pm. The team is going without seniors like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, KL Rahul.
In such a situation, Team India can go against Sri Lanka with a new opening pair. If Shubman Gill gets a chance, then Team India will be seen starting with Shubman Gill along with Ishaan Kishan.
In such a situation, it will be a challenge for Team India to win the first match of the year in front of Captain Hardik Pandya, because the team has won the first match of the year only once in the last 10 years.
India’s youth brigade would like to start the year with a win in this match. At the same time, Asian champions Sri Lanka would like to beat India with new faces.
Pitch report
So far 7 T20 Internationals have been played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The teams chasing 5 times and batting the first 2 times won. Mumbai’s pitch is considered high scoring and chasing become easier after the dew comes in the night.
In such a situation, the team winning the toss would like to bat. The average score of the first innings on this ground is 195 runs and the average score of the second innings is 182 runs.
Captain Rohit-Virat will not play T20 series
Team India is playing in the absence of senior players like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Jaspreet Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja. The captaincy of the team has been handed over to Hardik Pandya. Star batsman Suryakumar Yadav has been named India’s vice-captain for the T20I series.
Hardik Pandya captained India for the first time in 2022 in a three-match series against Ireland. After this, the team came under his captaincy in the T20 series against New Zealand. Under the captaincy of Pandya, India has played 5 T20 matches so far.
Of these, 4 were won and one match was tied. After this series, Hardik Pandya will be the vice-captain of the team for the three ODI series, while Rohit Sharma will be the captain.
Rohit Sharma has scored the most runs for India in T20 International against Sri Lanka. However, they are not playing this match. He has 411 runs in 19 matches at a strike rate of 144.21. Rohit also scored a century in 35 balls against Sri Lanka.
Talking about the bowling, Yuzvendra Chahal has taken maximum wickets from India against Sri Lanka. Chahal has taken 20 wickets in 10 matches at an economy of 8.23. Ravichandran Ashwin 14 is chasing him. While Kuldeep Yadav has taken 12 wickets.