‘Won’t sledge. Our body language is enough for Sri Lanka to…’: Captain Hardik

After a disappointing 2022, Team India will hope to start the new year on a strong note as they host Sri Lanka for a full-fledged limited over series.

The action gets underway with the T20Is, with the opening encounter scheduled to be played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday. Hardik Pandya will be leading a relatively new Indian unit, with the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, and KL Rahul not being a part of the squad. The trio will join the rest of the team for ODIs, which starts from next week.

Despite the big names missing, the hosts will still go into the contest as favourites, considering the rich pool of talent India possess. However, Pandya will not make the mistake of taking Sri Lanka lightly, who had stunned India by six wickets in their last meeting, which was at the Asia Cup 2022.

The series provide India with a good chance to settle past scores but Pandya made it clear that his team won’t head into the contest with this intention. However, he did assure that India will keep things tight for the opposition and special attention will be given to players who took the game away from India at the continental tournament last year.

“We are not looking to settle anything, just want to play good cricket. But yes I ensure they will feel that they are playing India in India. So we don’t need to go and sledge them, our body language is enough for them to feel intimidated, which we will do,” the stand-in skipper said during the pre-match presser on Monday.

“All the players who took the game away in Asia Cup are the ones I’m looking forward to stop,” he added.