Toss Sri Lanka chose to bat vs Pakistan

Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first in the second Test against Pakistan. Overnight rain meant a wet outfield delayed the start of play by 30 minutes at the SSC.

The pitch was expected to be better for batting early on during the Test, with good pace and consistent bounce. The overnight rain could have meant mean some seam movement early on, with moisture potentially trapped under the surface. The track was expected to take progressively more turn from day three onwards. The bad news was that there is rain forecast for each day of the Test.

Sri Lankan skipper Dimuth Karunaratne said that the last few days in Colombo were quite hot, so he expected any moisture on the surface to dry up quite quickly. He said that he wanted his spinners to have the best of bowling conditions.

Sri Lanka: 1 Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), 2 Nishan Madushka, 3 Kusal Mendis, 4 Angelo Mathews, 5 Dinesh Chandimal, 6 Dhananjaya de Silva, 7 Sadeera Samarawickrama (wk), 8 Ramesh Mendis, 9 Prabath Jayasuriya, 10 Asitha Fernando, 11 Dilshan Madushanka

Pakistan: 1 Abdullah Shafique, 2 Imam-ul-Haq, 3 Shan Masood, 4 Babar Azam (capt), 5 Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk), 6 Saud Shakeel, 7 Agha Salman, 8 Noman Ali, 9 Naseem Shah, 10 Abrar Ahmed, 11 Shaheen Shah Afridi