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Kumar Sangakkara won his first toss of the series and went by the norm at the Brabourne Stadium: bat first, look to do so cautiously through the first session, and then cash in on a pitch that promises good and consistent bounce. Sri Lanka were still looking for their Test win in India and their hosts knew that if they won they would become the No. 1 Test team - for the first time - per the ICC rankings.

As expected the teams made a change each. For India it was a forced one: Gautam Gambhir was at his sister's wedding and was replaced by Tamil Nadu's M Vijay, who replaced him last year too when he was banned for one Test against Australia. In a way the change Sri Lanka made was forced too: Ajantha Mendis had been innocuous in the series, and was replaced by Nuwan Kulasekara.

Sri Lanka: 1 Tharanga Paranavitana, 2 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (capt), 4 Mahela Jayawardene, 5 Thilan Samaraweera, 6 Angelo Mathews, 7 Prasanna Jayawardene (wk), 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Chanaka Welegedara, 10 Muttiah Muralitharan, 11 Rangana Herath.

India : 1 M Vijay, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 VVS Laxman, 6 Yuvraj Singh, 7 MS Dhoni (capt/wk), 8 Harbhajan Singh, 9 Zaheer Khan, 10 Sreesanth, 11 Pragyan Ojha.