After an emphatic win at Kanpur now India will look to wrap up the series at Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai to not only win the test series but also grab the number one test ranking in the ICC Points Table. At presently India is sitting together with South Africa at number one spot in the ICC Ranking table but they need to win the third test match against Sri Lanka to move ahead of the South Africans in the points table. However a loss or draw in the 3rd test match will push India back to the position where they were at the start of this test series. On the other hand Sri Lanka will eye their first win on Indian soil which they never manage to achieve on their previous tours to India. Sri Lankans will feel more comfortable with the absence of Gautam Gambhir from the Indian lineup. However they still have to deal with one of the strongest batting line up in the world. And for that only reason they have included Nuwan Kulasekara in the playing XI for the third test match. Kumar Sangakara knows that they need 20 wickets to wrap up the test match and registered their first win on Indian soil. So far M.S.Dhoni is lucky to wins the toss in the last two matches, however the captain winning the toss here in Mumbai have lots of dilemma whether to bat or field first since balls mover quite a bit in the morning. If India bat first Sri Lanka will be eyeing to remove Delhi Dasher Virendra Sehwag as soon as possible because he is one of the dangerous batsman who can take the game away from Sri Lanka as he did in last test match at Kanpur. Sri Lanka also needs a superb performance from their legend spinner M.Muralitharan in this game who will be playing his last test on Indian soil. So far he is completely flop in the last two games and not bowls as per his team expectation. Teams News With Gautam Gambhir already opted out of third test because of his family marriage, Murali Vijay is likely to get his second outing in test cricket. Rest team will be same as played in Kanpur. On the other hand Sri Lanka has opted for Nuwan Kulasekara in place of Ajantha Mendis. Likely Playing XI for both Teams (Match is Schedule to begin at 09:30 AM India Time) India : Murali Vijay, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (Captain/WK), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, S.Srrsanth, P.Ojha. Sri Lanka: Tharanga Paranavitana, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Kumar Sangakkara (Captain), Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Samaraweera, Angelo Mathews, Prasanna Jayawardene (WK), C.Welegedara, Muttiah Muralitharan, N.Kulasekara. Stats Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai will host his first international cricket after a long gap of 36 years. Eleven out of 17 test matches played here is resulted in a draw. However in last six test games four yielded results. Rahul Dravid needs another 218 runs to go pass Ricky Ponting in the runs tally. |
