Sri Lanka start their Test journey in 2024 under the leadership of Dhananjaya de Silva who has taken over the reins from Dimuth Karunaratne. De Silva won the toss and opted to field first against Afghanistan in their one-off Test match at the Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo on Friday. (More Cricket News)
Speaking at the toss, Dhananjaya de Silva, Sri Lanka captain said, "We are gonna bowl first as we are going in with three seamers. Chamika Gunasekara is making his debut. I'm captaining my country for the first time so I'm excited and happy."
Here's what Hashmatullah Shahidi added after losing the toss to Sri Lanka. "We wanted to bat first only and they have given us batting. We have a lot of good players and the youngsters are doing well in first-class cricket. We have four debutants today, two of them are fast bowlers and one of them is left-arm spinner. We are excited and we are looking forward to it. It's high time to show and express ourselves."
Talking about the SSC pitch, Farveez Maharoof while speaking on-air said, "So much grass been left, it is unusual in Sri Lanka and there’s a good amount of moisture. The pitch is hard, the seamers will get assistance first up. Overall, this pitch will hold for three days for batting and after that, the spinners will come into play."
Teams:
Afghanistan (Playing XI): Ibrahim Zadran, Noor Ali Zadran, Rahmat Shah, Hashmatullah Shahidi (c), Nasir Jamal, Ikram Alikhil (wk), Zia-ur-Rehman, Qais Ahmad, Nijat Masood, Mohammad Saleem Safi, Naveed Zadran.
Sri Lanka (Playing XI): Dimuth Karunaratne, Nishan Madushka, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dhananjaya de Silva(c), Sadeera Samarawickrama(w), Chamika Gunasekara, Prabath Jayasuriya, Vishwa Fernando, Asitha Fernando.
Afghanistan will be without their talismanic spinner Rashid Khan, who continues to recover from the back surgery.
