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CricBattle Daily Fantasy Cricket League Tips

Sri Lanka vs India on August 3

After getting thumped in the first Test at Galle, Sri Lanka are looking for answers. They are on the verge of capitulating to a successive Test series loss against India. Sri Lanka are known to be tough competitors, especially at home but their recent form has been alarming. India won the 3-match Test series in 2015 after a gap of 23 years when they beat the Islanders by a margin of 2-1.

·         Best economical pick – Dimuth Karunaratne could score just 2 runs off 9 balls in the first innings. He was the top scorer for the Sri Lankan side in the second inning with 97 runs to his name. His courageous inning came at a point when wickets were falling at regular intervals on the other end. The left handed batsman took the pressure upon himself and somewhat stabilized the innings staying on the pitch facing as many as 208 deliveries.

·       Top captains & vice captains – The ever reliable source of getting runs, Cheteshwar Pujara once again has proven his worth coming in at number 3. A spectacular hundred from him helped India get a big score and he was brilliant at forward short leg taking a couple of sharp catches. A hundred from the skipper in the second innings was very imperative for him personally and he’d be glad to have some runs after his name. But Virat Kohli in prime is a lot better than what we saw on Day 3 and he even dropped an absolute sitter on the fourth day.

·       Smart pick – Shikhar Dhawan, who wasn’t in the scheme of things as far as Test cricket is concerned, looks set to retain his place in the side following a blitzkrieg innings on return at Galle. He literally batted Sri Lanka out of this Test match and put India in a commanding position in the first two sessions of the game. However, the juggernaut fell short by a mere 10 runs as he was caught by Angelo Mathews, off Pradeep.  He went back to the pavilion amidst applause from the dressing room as well as the crowd for his superb knock of 190.

·         Cautious Pick – Sometimes, teams are heavily reliant on a single player to win games, but that backfires quite badly when that superstar player is targeted and hammered. Something similar happened in Rangana Herath’s case in first test as the 39-year-old entered the game with high expectations and failed to provide anything magical. He gave away 193 runs and took only 1 wicket in entire match.

My XI – C Pujara (Captain), Virat Kohli (Vice-Captain), Dimuth Karunaratne, S Dhawan, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Malinda Pushpakumara, Dilruwan Perera, Niroshan Dickwella, Lokesh Rahul, Lahiru Kumara