West Indies and Sri Lanka will face off in the third and final test of the series from June 23 at the Kensington Oval in Barbados. With Windies leading 1-0, the Asian islanders will now have to win their first pink ball encounter in Caribbean island to prevent a series defeat.
Pink Balls used in Day Night Test Match
Day Night Test Stats :This will be first Day-Night Fixture between the teams. While Lankans have tasted success in their one and only appearance against Pakistan in October 2017 where they came out victorious by 68 Runs.
On the other hand Windies are yet to open their account in this format having lost on both occasions against Pakistan by 56 Runs and England by an innings and 209 Runs respectively.
Rangana Herath to take Captaincy Duties
Sri Lanka : Sri Lankan Skipper Dinesh Chandimal has been handed a one-test suspension by ICC after being found guilty in the ball-tampering incident during the second test and will therefore miss the Barbados test. Rangana Herath might take over the captaincy duties during his absence.
After suffering a massive 226-run defeat in the first test, Sri Lanka put up a decent fight during second especially with improved batting performance and they will be taking plenty of confidence from that into the final test.
With Dinesh Chandimal serving suspension the onus will be on Kusal Mendis who is currently the leading run-getter in the series with 238 runs to provide good start to innings while Dickwella and Silva who batted well during second test would like to replicate their performance.
Jason Holder (Windies Skipper)
Windies : West Indies will consider themselves lucky after having escaped what seemed as a probable defeat in the St Lucia test. All due to Sri Lanka's unnecessary protest followed by bad light and rain halting the final day's play.
After a good batting display on the previous three occasions , the hosts were left staggering in the final innings of second test at 117-5 in their pursuit of 296 runs.
For home side, Shane Dowrich and Kumar Roach will be amoung players to watch, where Shane has been pick of the batsmen having scored the most runs for their team in this series 201 runs which includes a century and a fifty is expected to continue his good form. While Roach has been incredible throughout the series with 17 scalps including a match haul of six wickets at St Lucia. With all players performing and the series 1-0 in their favour, the Windies will likely not tinker with the combination
Expected Teams : Sri Lanka : Kusal Perera, Mahela Udawatte, Dhananjaya de Silva, Kusal Mendis, Roshen Silva, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Akila Dananjaya, Rangana Herath, Suranga Lakmal, Kasun Rajitha and Lahiru Kumar.
West Indies : Jason Holder (c), Kraigg Brathwaite, Devon Smith, Kieran Powell, Shai Hope, Roston Chase, Shane Dowrich (wk), Devendra Bishoo, Kemar Roach, Miguel Cummins and Shannon Gabriel.
