India ride high on confidence as they enter the 3rd T20I of the Paytm T20 Trophy after thrashing Sri Lanka by a massive margin of 69 runs in the 2nd T20I at Ranchi. The match will be played at the Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Vishakhapatnam. This final match of the series will be of utmost importance to both India and Sri Lanka as it will decide which team goes into the Asia Cup (starting 24th February,2016) riding on a winning momentum.

India were totally outclassed in the 1st T20I of the series as they lost by 5 wickets. But they have shown tremendous character to come back strongly in the 2nd T20I . All the Indian Batsmen failed to deliver on a difficult wicket at Pune in the 1st T20I as they had little time to adjust to the Indian conditions after a long Australian Tour. The credit cannot be taken away from the young Sri-Lankan bowlers as they hit the right lengths on that pitch. The most impressive among them was Rajitha who failed to impress in the 2nd T20I conceding 45 runs without taking any wicket..

Sri Lanka don’t have many positives to take from 2nd T20I except for Thisara Perera’s hat-trick , however,India have many!! Indian Batsmen were on song as Dhawan registered his maiden T20I fifty which came in just 22 balls and young Hardik Pandya has shown glimpses of his capability with the bat scoring 27 of 12 balls. Rohit played a solid knock of 43 and Raina played a measured innings of 30 as well. The bowlers were equally impressive as Ashish Nehra struck early with the ball and ended up with figures of 2/26. The spinners were clinical with Ashwin taking 3-14 and Jadeja supporting him with figures of 2-24. And to speak about the new bowling sensation Jasprit Bumrah, he claimed 2-17 coming in to bowl in the later part of the innings.

The series is now level on 1-1. So, both the teams will go out with all guns blazing in this match. A win for India will mean that they stamp their authority over the ‘favourites’ tag for the upcoming ICC World T20 while a win for the young Sri-Lankan team will mean that they cannot be taken lightly either.

As this match will decide the winner of the series , there won’t be many changes in the Indian and Sri-Lankan playing XI. But if they decide to make one or two changes, either Harbhajan Singh or Pawan Negi will come into the Indian squad for Hardik Pandya whereas Sri-Lanka would like to go with the experience of Dilhara Fernando in a crunch Series decider.

Here is how the teams may line up-

India : Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj singh, MS Dhoni(C & wk), Hardik Pandya/Pawan Negi/Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ashish Nehra and Jasprit Bumrah.

Sri-Lanka : Tilakaratne Dilshan, Danushka Gunathilaka, Dinesh Chandimal(C & wk), Chamara Kapugedera, Milinda Siriwardana, Dasun Shanaka, T Perera, Sachithra Senanayake, Kasun Rajitha/Dilhara Fernando and Dushmantha Chameera

Time : 19:30 IST

Date : 14th Feb, 2016