Asia Cup 2023: Final – IND vs SL Preview

India and Sri Lanka are all set to lock horns in the final of the Asia Cup 2023 on Sunday, September 17 at R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo. The two teams finished on the first and second spots respectively in the Super 4 stage of the tournament with two wins each from three games.

India sealed their spot in the final by first beating Nepal in the Group Stage comprehensively by ten wickets to qualify for the Super Fours stage. The Rohit Sharma-led side further beat arch-rivals Pakistan by a massive margin of 228 runs and Sri Lanka by 41 runs to progress to the summit clash.

On the other hand, Sri Lanka came into Super Fours by beating Bangladesh and Afghanistan back-to-back. In the Super Fours, they beat Bangladesh by five wickets again but lost against India by 41 runs. However, the Dasun Shanaka-led side managed to register a thrilling win against Pakistan in their last Super 4 fixture and qualified for the final.

Having beaten Sri Lanka once before in the tournament, the Men in Blue will fancy their chances once again against the defending champions. However, they will be wary of their spin threat as Dunith Wellalage brought them down to their knees in the previous fixture. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka have found new heroes every match who have bailed them out of trouble and will hope for another complete performance in the big game to successfully defend their title.

Pitch Report

There have been a total of five matches played at the venue so far in the tournament, out of which four have been won by teams batting first. The average first innings score has been 268 while the highest target chased is 252. The captain winning the toss is likely to bat first as chasing under lights has been a tough task.

Probable Playing XI:

India (IND)

After making wholesale changes in the Bangladesh dead rubber, India will slot back in all of their first-choice players for the decisive clash.

Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul (wk), Ishan Kishan, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj

Sri Lanka (SL)

Sri Lanka will have a forced change as they have lost Maheesh Theekshana to an injury, naming Sahan Arachchige as the replacement.

Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis (wk), Sadeera Samarawickrama, Charith Asalanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Dasun Shanaka (c), Dunith Wellalage, Sahan Arachchige, Pramod Madushan, Matheesha Pathirana