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SL vs IND 2021: Team India Hands Debut Caps to Five Players, First Time After 41 Years

This is the first time India is playing with five debutants after 41 years.

New Delhi: Team India made as many as six changes to their playing XI in the third and final ODI against Sri Lanka at R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium on Friday. In fact, the Indian team handed debuts to five players as Sanju Samson, Krishnappa Gowtham, Nitish Rana, Chetan Sakariya and Rahul Chahar are playing their maiden ODI match.

This is the first time after a long gap of 41 years that the Indian team is playing with five debutants in the ODI format. The last time five debutants played for India was back in 1980 in an ODI against Australia at Melbourne.

Dilip Doshi, Kirti Azad, Roger Binny, Sandeep Patil & Tirumalai Srinivasan had made their debuts against the Australian team. Doshi had scalped three wickets whereas Sandeep Patil scored 64 runs from 70 balls and also took a wicket in that game. Furthermore, Roger Binny had bagged two wickets in his spell.

Thus, once again all eyes will be on these young players on how they grab their opportunities. Sanju Samson had made his T20I debut back in 2015 but he was dismissed after scoring 46 runs. Furthermore, India has lost the wickets of both their openers. Prithvi Shaw was unlucky as he was dismissed after scoring run-a-ball 49.

Meanwhile, Shikhar Dhawan won the toss for the first time in the series and had no doubt in electing to bat first.

Dhawan said at the toss, “We’ll bat first. We want to put up a good total on the board. We have got six changes and five debutants. Navdeep comes in among the debutants. We are motivated, and we want to finish on a high. With the youngsters coming in, we are really excited and looking forward”.

India has an impregnable lead of 2-0 in the three-match series and thus have made so many changes to their final XI.

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