India will play Sri Lanka in the first of the two T20Is on Wednesday at Nagpur. The second game will be played on Saturday at Mohali. The Indians will be on a high after having achieved the number one slot after having beaten the Sri Lankans rather easily by an innings in two successive games.

So far, the new stadium in Nagpur, at Jamtha, has so far, hosted two games; one ODI and one test match. And both games have been high-scoring encounters, with India scoring 354 in the ODI and almost 450 in the test match. Coincidentally, India has won both the games, and now, the ground will see its first ever T20I played here!

India has made quite a few changes to their squad and it is difficult to gauge what their playing eleven will be. There are a few first timers as well, as the likes of R. Ashwin, Ashok Dinda and Sudeep Tyagi make it for the first time into the T20I team, whereas S. Sreesanth makes a return to the side as well. Pragyan Ojha has also been selected to the side in place of Amit Mishra too. After having missed the third and the final test due to his sister's marriage, Gautam Gambhir will also make a comeback to the side.

Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir should continue to open the innings, while Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma should definitely make it to the playing eleven for India. Yusuf Pathan should be a certainty as well, now that Ravindra Jadeja has been chucked out of the side, whereas amongst the bowlers, Ashish Nehra and Sreesanth look certain. The other two positions in the side should, in all probabilities, go to a spinner and a quick bowler, and in that case, Pragyan Ojha and one of Tyagi, Dinda or Ishant Sharma should be taken into the eleven.

For the Sri Lankans, the captain was sore about the review system not being used for the series and hence he losing out on almost 500 runs. The same trend is going to continue for this T20I series as well, and he may well need to make the most out of the new guys in the side. T.Dilshan will continue to open and in all probabilities will have Sanath Jayasuriya as his partner, but it will be the bowling of Lasith Malinga that the captain will use to unleash against the hosts.

There cannot be any doubt that it is difficult to pinpoint favourites, and the same will continue in this series. However, India has not had a great time in the T20Is ever since the times of winning the ICC World T20.

Tag :- Ashok Dinda   Gautam Gambhir   India   Sanath Jayasuriya   Sri Lanka   Yusuf Pathan   Yuvraj Singh