Rain stays away as India and Sri Lanka look for fair contest to enter final
Tomorrow
Match yet to begin
Will India change their opening combination to play Vaibhav Sooryavanshi? • BCCI
Big picture: Big gulf in quality between India and Sri Lanka
After six abandoned matches, five of them without a toss, because of incessant rain - Shreyas Iyer called it a "torrential downpour" - in Nisshin, we might finally get some cricket again at the men's Asian Games.
The timing couldn't have been better because the four remaining games will decide the positions on the podium. Pakistan and Bangladesh still don't have a gold in this edition (as of Wednesday morning); Sri Lanka have just one; India have seven but that's well behind the 28 they finished with in 2023.
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India are the defending champions, and it will take a gargantuan effort from the second-string Sri Lanka side to throw them off their path. Even the full-strength Sri Lanka T20I side has not been able to score 150 of late, or win a match since June, and have only one win from their last ten attempts. The Sri Lanka squad that hasn't played even a moment of cricket since landing in Japan has a captain - Sahan Arachchige - with just one T20I to his name, which came back in the 2023 Asian Games, when they lost to Afghanistan. The more recognisable names are Niroshan Dickwella and Ashen Bandara, who haven't featured in a T20I since 2021 and 2023 respectively. There are six other players in that squad of 15 who have played fewer than ten T20Is each, and another four who are uncapped.
India, unlike most other Full Member sides, have sent their big guns to Japan.
There's also an ODIs series going on at home, and the ODI World Cup is just a year away. But they chose to send the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan, among others, to Japan instead, which shows their commitment to the gold-medal cause.
Rain or shine, Sri Lanka will have to sweat it out on Thursday to try and get the better of India.
Form guide
India WWWWW (last five completed games, most recent first)
Sri Lanka LLLLW
In the spotlight: Washington Sundar and Niroshan Dickwella
India have been plagued by injuries of late and one of the names on that list was that of Washington Sundar, who returned to action in the Japan T20I last week. He didn't get to bat, but bowled two overs and took two wickets in his first game in two months. India would want to give him more game time before he heads back home for the West Indies T20Is that start on October 6. Washington has otherwise had an impressive year across formats with an unbeaten 52 in an ODI to give India their first win of their UK tour after he took a four-for in the Test against Afghanistan, in which he also scored 52*.
Niroshan Dickwella last played a T20I in 2021 and he is back in the scheme of things despite an underwhelming Lanka Premier League a couple of months ago, where he scored only 110 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 142.85 while averaging 18.33. He has, however, been among the runs of late, and scored a brisk 80 off 115 balls in the first Test against India. If he gets to bat on Tuesday, this could be a great chance for Dickwella to show why he was once an all-format regular for Sri Lanka.
Team news
India had rested Bumrah for the one-off T20I against Japan and played Arshdeep Singh and Yash Thakur as the quicks, and Ravi Bishnoi, Axar Patel and Washington as the lead spinners. India will now have to decide whom to leave out for Bumrah. The other question will be whether to give Vaibhav Sooryavanshi a game, although neither Abhishek Sharma nor Sanju Samson have any reason to be dropped.
India (possible): 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Axar Patel, 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Washington Sundar, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Yash Thakur/Arshdeep Singh, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
Sri Lanka will be expected to hand out a few debut caps and give game time to some of the more inexperienced players.
Sri Lanka (possible): 1 Niroshan Dickwella (wk), 2 Lasith Croospulle, 3 Sahan Arachchige (capt), 4 Nuwanidu Fernando, 5 Ashen Bandara, 6 Chamika Karunaratne, 7 Tharindu Ratnayake, 8 Wanuja Sahan, 9 Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, 10 Nuwan Thushara, 11 Binura Fernando
Pitch and conditions
After a spell of heavy rain in Nisshin, the sun was out in all its glory on Wednesday. The forecast for Thursday is "very warm with plenty of sunshine" according to AccuWeather and "mainly sunny" according to The Weather Channel, with temperatures expected to go up to 30 degrees Celsius and the humidity to be around 60%.
In case unexpected rain washes out this game too, India will go through to the final for being higher-ranked side.
Stats and trivia
- India have a win-loss ratio of 2.375 (19 wins from 27) this year whereas Sri Lanka's is only 0.384 (five wins from 18). Sri Lanka are at the bottom among Full Member teams.
- Dickwella made his T20I debut against India, back in 2016. The last time he faced India was in December 2017 when MS Dhoni was still playing for India and Rohit Sharma had just taken over the T20I captaincy. Coincidentally, Iyer, Bumrah and Washington played that series and are in the current Asian Games side too.
Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at Cricinfo
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