India to tour Sri Lanka in July with a second-string team

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India will play three One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and three Twenty-20 Internationals (T20Is) in Sri Lanka in July, but it will almost certainly be a second-string team, as many of the country's top players will be in the UK for Test duty.

According to the proposed itinerary from Sri Lanka Cricket, three ODIs will be played on July 13, 16 and 19, followed by T20Is on July 22, 24 and 27.

The Indian Test team is not expected to play in July, but they will compete in the World Test Championship final from June 18 to 22, followed by a five-match Test series against England on August 4. With the current state of global quarantine regulations, it seems logistically impractical for the same players to be eligible for the white-ball matches in Sri Lanka.

With Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul and a few others likely to miss out because they will be in preparation for the England Tests, the selectors are likely to pick from an abundant IPL talent pool that has been honed through the India A programmes under Rahul Dravid.

Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sanju Samson, Prithvi Shaw, Deepak Chahar, Rahul Chahar, Jaydev Unadkat, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy and Rahul Tewatia are some of the players who will be in the mix for the Sri Lanka tour.