The opening match of Champions Trophy 2017 for India went quite well as they thrashed their rivals by 124 runs. So we can say that men in blue are ready for every challenge in the tournament. But the case is not the same with Sri Lanka. They are going through a bad phase in this tournament, regular captain Angelo Mathews got injured before their opening match against South Africa, Upul Tharanga who was Sri Lanka’s captain for that match got suspended for two matches due to slow over rate, and on the top of that, they also lost their first match.
After the retirement of legendary players like Kumar Sangakara and Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s cricket has seen a lot of downfall. One reason can be that after every series, new players are introduced. So the old players did not get any time to settle down. According to Angelo Mathews, “If you look at most of the guys, they haven’t played a lot of international cricket. The more you play, the more you learn, and we’ve learned right throughout our careers. Yes, it’s a very tough question. You never know. But it’s just that we’ve got to keep learning every single day, and everyone has to step up with their roles because we can’t just expect things to fall in line.”
On the other hand, India will be playing with the same winning squad as well as with the same winning attitude. Records of players like Dhoni and Kohli have been quite good against Sri Lanka. The average of the former Indian captain against Sri Lanka is 61.35 and that of Kohli is 56.24 . The only department in which India needs to improve is the fielding as Kohli remarked after the India Pakistan Match.