Sudharsan’s toe rules him out of Galle, and Padikkal’s 142 lands the same afternoon
India lost their No. 3 to a toe stress fracture and found a replacement in the same day’s play in Colombo.
Aug 8, 2026
India’s batting for the Galle Test lost a man and found one on the same afternoon. Sai Sudharsan, who had been picked at No. 3, is out of the first Test with a stress fracture in his toe. A few hours later at the Nondescripts ground in Colombo, Devdutt Padikkal finished the second day of the warm-up game unbeaten on 142, batting at No. 3.
The timing is almost too neat. It also leaves India’s selectors with rather less to worry about than they had on Friday night.
A toe that would not come right
Sudharsan was named in the original squad of 15, but his place and Jasprit Bumrah’s were both conditional on a fitness sign-off from the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru. Bumrah failed his and was replaced by Auqib Nabi last week. Sudharsan has now gone the same way.
He picked up the injury before the squad was named and went straight to the CoE after returning from the India A tour of Sri Lanka in July, a trip on which he made 132, 7 not out, 168 and 25 not out. He was selected on the understanding that he would be fit for Galle. He was not, and by all accounts he still could not sprint at full tilt even once the toe had started to settle. He never travelled with the squad.
Reports differ slightly on how much of the tour he misses. Cricinfo has him out of both Tests; several Indian outlets have him out of the first with the second still open. The BCCI has not put out a formal statement either way, and no replacement has been named.
Padikkal makes the case for himself
Padikkal’s 142 came off 164 balls with 18 fours, and it was not one innings so much as two. He reached his hundred, retired out to give somebody else a bat, and then came back late in the day when India ran short of batters and carried on where he had left off.
He put on 96 with KL Rahul, who made 40, and 72 with Ravindra Jadeja, who made 63 before retiring hurt. Manav Suthar batted 90 balls for 41. Gurnoor Brar closed the day with 36 not out off 18, four of them sixes, three off one over from the left-arm spinner Dilum Sudeera. India finished on 357 for 6, six runs short of the Sri Lanka Cricket XI’s 363 for 8 declared, with three batters retired hurt and one wicket standing.
Not everything went well. Yashasvi Jaiswal edged the second ball of the day to backward point, and Rishabh Pant and Dhruv Jurel both went cheaply to the offspin of Ramesh Mendis and the close catchers on a surface already turning. But India came to Colombo to find out who can bat on a pitch like the one waiting in Galle, and one of them scored 142.
The squad list keeps getting shorter
India go to Galle without Bumrah, without Sudharsan, and without Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Akash Deep, all injured. Washington Sundar is unavailable for at least the first Test. Shubman Gill, the captain, took an impact injury to his right ring finger in training on Thursday and sat out the warm-up as a precaution, with the BCCI’s medical staff watching him.
Gill should be fine. The rest of it is a lot of absences for a side sitting fifth in the World Test Championship table with four wins and four defeats from nine matches, about to play two Tests on surfaces that will ask hard questions of a top order that has been rebuilt twice in a fortnight.
The first Test starts in Galle on 15 August. The second is at the SSC in Colombo from 23 August.