India vs Sri Lanka, 1st T20I: Sri Lanka T20I series Team India's chance to give more game time to claimants

Coming off a 3-0 whitewash of the West Indies, the in-form Indians will look to do an encore against the visiting Sri Lankans, and the Rohit Sharma-led squad has a realistic chance of achieving that. But the endeavour to complete another clean sweep will not mean a climb-down from their keenness to give enough game time to as many players as possible in the lead-up to the World Cup, which will be held in Australia in October-November.

The absence of the team's established players, such as Virat Kohli and Rishbah Pant as well as KL Rahul, in the upcoming three T20 Internationals will definitely translate into more opportunities for the likes of Ishan Kishan, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sanju Samson. Kohli not there means Shreyas Iyer will get a chance to settle down, play more overs, score some useful runs and stake a claim for one of the middle-order slots, though the former India captain will come back to claim his number three spot heading into the World Cup. The duo of Gaikwad and Iyer failed in the third T20Is against the West Indies and they would hope that they impress against Sri Lanka.

Read AlsoSuryakumar Yadav out of Sri Lanka T20Is

The Team India camp is currently beset with injuries. Soon after a hamstring injury ruled pacer Deepak Chahar out of the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka, which begins with the first game on Thursday at Lucknow, it has emerged that star batsman Suryakumar Yadav too will not be available for

One of the highlights over the last week was Venkatesh Iyer's ability to finish off matches and if he is able to continue in the same vein against the islanders, while managing to improve his bowling, the Indian team management will have a world-class all-rounder at its disposal going into the