A depleted India were weakened further, this time in the batting department, with the loss of opener Gautam Gambhir due to a knee injury and Yuvraj Singh to high fever. Suresh Raina will make his Test debut while M Vijay will partner Sehwag at the top of the order.

The loss of two first-choice batsmen wasn't the only setback India experienced on the first morning. MS Dhoni called wrongly and Kumar Sangakkara, without any hesitation, chose to bat on a dry track. Sri Lanka made some changes of their own, opting for two spinners and three seamers. Offspinner Suraj Randiv was handed a debut at the expense of Rangana Herath; Ajantha Mendis replaced the retired Muttiah Muralitharan; Dilhara Fernando came in for the injured Lasith Malinga, and seamer Dammika Prasad was preferred over the left-arm pace of Chanaka Welegedara.

Dhoni expected the pitch to yield more bounce than the one in Galle. With India 1-0 down in the series and forced to bowl on what has recently been a high-scoring surface, he will hope his inexperienced pace attack exploits any early advantage on offer.

Sri Lanka: 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Tharana Paranavitana, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Angelo Mathews, 7 Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), 8 Dammika Prasad, 9 Dilhara Fernando, 10 Suraj Randiv, 11 Ajantha Mendis.

India: 1 M Vijay, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 VVS Laxman, 6 Suresh Raina, 7 MS Dhoni (capt and wk), 8 Abhimanyu Mithun, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Ishant Sharma, 11 Pragyan Ojha.