Prithvi Shaw, who made an impressive debut in the recently concluded ODI series against hosts Sri Lanka was also presented with his T20I cap for the first time. Along with Shaw Kolkata Knight Rider and Tamil Nadu player, Varun Chakravarthy also made his India debut after first being named in the squad way back in October 2020 to tour Australia.
While 21-year-old Shaw became the 87th player to represent India in the shortest format, 29-year-old Chakravarthy got the India cap number 88.
Chakravarthy, who came into the limelight with a brilliant outing for KKR in the 2020 season of the IPL which was hosted in UAE, has so far played 21 IPL games and picked up 25 wickets in them. Shaw, in his 46 IPL appearances has hit 1134 runs at an average of 24.65 and at a striker rate of more than 146.
Shaw didn’t have a great debut though, rather an unforgettable one as he was out the very first ball that he faced in T20I. He edged the first ball of the match by Dushmantha Chameera to wicketkeeper Minod Bhanuka. The first match of the three-match series is taking place at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.
For Sri Lanka, two players also made their debut including the all-rounder Chamika Karunaratne and left haded batter Charith Asalanka, both of whom impressed in the ODI series. Identically they too were the 87th and 88th players to represent their country in the shortest international format of the game.