The Indian captain Virat Kohli has confirmed the playing XI of Indian Cricket Team for the second Test match against Sri Lanka. The opener of first test Abhinav Mukund will out from the squad, as KL Rahul is fully fit and he is also the first choice of Team management and skipper Virat Kohli.
Kohli said,”KL Rahul has been our established opener. I feel one of the openers (Dhawan or Mukund) will have to make way for him because what he (Rahul) has done in the past two years for us has been very solid. He deserves to come back and start fresh in Test cricket again.”
“We have a team meeting later on after practice and we’ll be able to clarify that then. But yes, according to me, KL (Rahul) will definitely come back into the eleven.”
“It is very important to make Rahul feel at ease specifically because he played the practice game as well and he looked really solid. He has batted really well in the last couple of seasons for us. It is very important for us to make him feel that this is his spot.
“And it won’t be changed because of unfortunate events that happen outside of the playing field or the injuries that you can’t control,” Kohli added.
The Indian Cricket Team won the first test by a huge margin of 304 runs. The other opener Shikhar Dhawan batted brilliantly in the first game and scored a brilliant century. He was also the player of the match in that game.
Indian Team for Second Test: Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli (Captain), Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (Wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravi Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Mohammed Shami