On Sunday, BCCI president Sourav Ganguly revealed that the Indian team will be touring to Sri Lanka in July for a limited-overs bilateral series without the top players. Big names such as skipper Virat Kohli and deputy Rohit Sharma will not be part of the tour as they will be engaged in a marquee five-match Test series in England.
During an interaction with PTI, Sourav Ganguly said, “We have planned a white ball series for the senior men’s team during the month of July where they will play T20 Internationals and ODIs in Sri Lanka. Yes, it will be a team of white-ball specialists. It will be a different team.”
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As per a report in Cricinfo, the second-string Indian team will reach Sri Lanka on July 5. Three ODIs will be played on July 13, 16, and 19, followed by as many T20Is on July 22, 24, and 27. All the matches are set to take place in Premadasa Stadium, Colombo. India’s tour of England will be concluding on September 14 and with the schedule of the remainder of IPL yet to be chalked out, the BCCI would want the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal to be match ready.
Though BCCI is yet to officially announce the Indian squad for the tour – one thing is certain, none of the England-bound players will be available for tour to Sri Lanka.
Predicted Sri Lanka tour India squad: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Devdutt Padikkal, Manish Pandey, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Suryakuamr Yadav, Sanju Samson, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Jaydev Unadkat, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Bhuvneshar Kumar, Krunal Pandya, Chetan Sakariya, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Rahul Tewatia
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With Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul, and few others set to miss the Sri Lanka tour because they will be in preparation for the England Tests, the selectors will pick from an abundant IPL talent pool that has been honed through India A programs under Rahul Dravid, the NCA director.
