Toss India chose to bowl vs New Zealand
India captain Shreyas Iyer has chosen to bowl in the first T20I against New Zealand in Christchurch. India are playing this match two days after landing in New Zealand, and less than five days after the fifth T20I of their home series against West Indies, but Iyer said he wasn’t worried about jetlag or lack of preparation. “No complaints, we’re a bunch of professionals.”
India made two changes to their XI from the washed-out Bengaluru T20I, bringing in Nitish Kumar Reddy for Shivam Dube in a swap of seam-bowling allrounders – with Reddy likely considered more useful in a match likely to feature far more fast bowling than spin – and bringing in the pacy Mayank Yadav for Prince Yadav in the pace attack. Allrounders Axar Patel and Naman Dhir made up the spin attack.
New Zealand had some big calls to make including who bats at No. 3 in the injury-enforced absence of Rachin Ravindra, and which of their plethora of seam-bowling options to pick. They slotted Daryl Mitchell at No. 3 on their team sheet, and Bevon Jacobs in the middle order, which meant Devon Conway and Josh Clarkson missed out. They picked four seamers in Nathan Smith, Matt Henry, Adam Milne and Lockie Ferguson, which meant there was no room for Kyle Jamieson, Jacob Duffy or Blair Tickner.
New Zealand: 1 Finn Allen, 2 Tim Seifert (wk), 3 Daryl Mitchell, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Bevon Jacobs, 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Nathan Smith, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Adam Milne, 11 Lockie Ferguson.
India: 1 Sanju Samson (wk), 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Mayank Yadav.
