India won the toss and chose to bat in the second Test against Sri Lanka on Saturday at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. Rohit Sharma and company brought in Axar Patel, who has an impressive home-record, for Jayant Yadav. 

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India has a 1-0 lead in the two-match series after winning in Mohali by an innings and 222 runs.

India made one change to its playing side — fit-again left-arm spinner Axar Patel comes in and replaces off-spinner Jayant Yadav. Patel took 11 wickets against England in India’s last day-night Test.

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Sri Lanka made two changes with pace bowler Lahiru Kumara and batsman Pathum Nissanka out injured. Praveen Jayawickrama and Kusal Mendis come in as their replacements.

The pitch at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium is a dry one and it is expected to test the batsmen across five days.

A capacity crowd of 40,000 s expected for the weekend. Local authorities have allowed 100% capacity at an international cricket game in India for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic hit more than two years ago.

Dimuth Karunaratne: The wicket is pretty dry and in the later part it is going to turn, so we wanted to bat first as well. We spoke about the things we did wrong in the last Test and we just want to make sure it won’t happen again. Every session we have to compete with them and let’s see how it goes. We have had good pink-ball Test matches in the past and that will help the players. Pathum Nissanka and Lahiru Kumara are not available. Kusal Mendis and Praveen Jayawickrama are playing.

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Rohit Sharma: We are going to bat first. It looks like a very dry pitch and runs are the board is going to be critical. Axar Patel is fit and he is back, he comes in place of Jayant. It has a lot to do with the conditions, it is a dry pitch and Axar we saw what he did in the last series he played, so obviously we wanted to get him back. Unfortunate for Jayant to miss out after playing just one Test match but again we want to give guys who have done well a slightly longer rope and give them enough opportunities to prove themselves. When it comes to mindset we want to be ruthless. There is a lot at stake but we want to take one session at a time and not look too far ahead. It is going to be a challenging Test match and we got to be at it and get what we want from this game.

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Teams:

Sri Lanka (Playing XI): Dimuth Karunaratne(c), Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Niroshan Dickwella(w), Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Embuldeniya, Vishwa Fernando, Praveen Jayawickrama

India (Playing XI): Mayank Agarwal, Rohit Sharma(c), Hanuma Vihari, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah