Tag 3rdODI-Cuttack

Extra drinks and messages from dressing room for batters, bowlers bringing breath back after every delivery, captains & senior pros meeting frequently and several other reasons delay finish of one day cricket matches almost evertime it goes down to the wire.. Most captains get away with match fee fines (which they certainly don't care about) but some, specially Indians (and asians, can't recall any Aussie), get match suspensions. Indian captain MS Dhoni has been banned from playing next 2 ODIs against Sri Lanka after his team successfully and unsuccessfully defended 414 and 301 at Rajkot (15 mins) & Nagpur (45 mins) respectively.

Note : MS Dhoni can be banned for 4 ODIs or 2 tests if his team is found guilty of same slow over rate in next 12 months.

Moving forward, although not initially named as vice-captain of the team, Virendra Sehwag will lead India in today's 3rd ODI which will be his 6th out of 213 games he has played. Sehwag has won 2 and lost 3 games for India and averages 19.6 as captain.

Barabati stadium in Cuttack in Orissa in eastern India will host its 16th ODI today, 7th one as day-night, to start at 2.30pm local India time. Home team has played 13 games here, winning 8 and losing 4 with 1 abandoned while Sri Lanka, the visitors, have been here only once back in year 1990 and won by 36 runs.

It has been a high scoring series so far and batting momentum is expected to continue as curator Pankaj Patnaik says ~ "We have given our best to prepare a batting wicket. We hope it turns out to be a batsman paradise on the lines of what we witnessed in Rajkot and Nagpur.. Bowlers will get good bounce and there will be little turn for spinners but we have to make sure the wickets offer lots of runs as it's a one-day match after all".

Team news
Angelo Mathews, star of previous game, suffered a strain in right quadricep muscle and will miss reminder of the series so Tissare Perera, the 20 year right arm medium pacer from Colombo joins in. Lasith Malinga may miss this game as he did last 2 while Suraj Randiv, after impressing his debut match at Nagpur, will be the one to watch out for.

Sri Lanka XI (likely) : Tillakaratane Dilshan, Upul Tharanga, Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene, Thilan Kandambi, Chamara Kapugedera/Thilan Samarweera, Sanath Jayasuriya, Suraj Randiv, Nuwan Kulasekara, Ajantha Mendis and Chanaka Welegedera.

Yuvraj is expected to be fit which may force Virat Kohli sit out this game despite making impressive half century the last time. Dinesh Kaarthik will keep wickets for India. Ishant Sharma also joins in as S Sreesanth is still recovering from swine flu.

India XI (likely) : Virendra Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Kaarthik, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar/Ishant Sharma and Ashish Nehra.