After the test matches series and the two T20Is between India and Sri Lanka, the sides will now battle it out for the five ODIs. The first of the five games will be played at Rajkot on Tuesday, and will be followed by games on Friday, Monday, Thursday and Sunday.
The second ODI, which was to be played on Friday in Vishakhapatnam, has now been changed to Nagpur given that the police has said that they will not be able to provide enough protection in the event of a riot thanks to the Telangana issue.
Leading up to this series, India had won six successive ODI series before losing the Champions Trophy and the seven ODI match-up to Australia at home. These six includes two against Sri Lanka in their hometown, one against New Zealand, West Indies, England and a triangular series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka. And given that Sri Lanka has featured thrice in these six series, it will not only be an opportunity for the Lankans to take revenge, but also mean that the Indians will go into the series as favourites.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, have had an up and down kind of an ODI record. They did not make it to the semi-finals of the Champions Trophy, much like India, and had lost the Compaq Cup tri-series as mentioned above. Earlier, they had easily brushed aside Pakistan at home, and also in Pakistan. Sri Lanka had also beaten India in the finals of the Asia Cup which was played in 2008, amongst the likes of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The last time the Lankans had played in India in a bilateral series was in 2007 before the World Cup and had gone on to lose 1-2 to the hosts. It had been even worse before that in 2005-06, when India had managed to rout the Lankans 6-1 in the series. This series had also marked the making of MS Dhoni who had gone on to smash a 183 as a number three batsman to win his side the match.
Before this series, Sri Lanka had toured India for an ODI series in 1997-98, and the series ended at 1-1, with one match abandoned due to a bad pitch. In fact, Sri Lanka has yet to win a bilateral ODI series in India so far!
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