Toss India chose to bowl v New Zealand
India may be facing a must-win game in Auckland but that didn’t make them budge from resting a key strike-bowler. Mohammed Shami was given a day off with Virat Kohli making specific mention that he wanted the 29-year old seamer to be fresh for the Test series later on the tour. In his absence, Navdeep Saini gets a look in and will be in action immediately after the visitors won the toss and chose to bowl.
New Zealand had a couple of changes as well, one of them already well publicised. Kyle Jamieson, the 25-year-old and over-two-metres-tall fast bowler, will play international cricket for the first time in front of his home crowd. Most of his exploits are in T20 cricket, notably a haul of 6 for 7 at Eden Park last year, but he doesn’t have to look too far to call up his one-day skills. Jamieson picked up his List A best of 4 for 49 against India A just a few days ago. The Black Caps’ other change was forced, with Mitchell Santner going down with a stomach bug and leaving the team with no spin options. Ish Sodhi is currently playing for the A side meaning the hole in the XI had to be patched up by including a specialist batsman, Mark Chapman, who is breaking an ODI hiatus of nearly two years.
India tweaked their spin department as well with Kuldeep Yadav sitting out and Yuzvendra Chahal playing his first ODI since August 2019. Kohli didn’t mention the runs Kuldeep has leaked and instead focused on the need to give Chahal some game time. He also wanted greater intensity from his team, the kind they showed in the T20I series. “With 50-overs being an extension of that, there is a little more time and the mind can drift. So we should do better there.”
Kane Wiliamson and Lockie Ferguson were at Eden Park as well, still working up to full fitness. New Zealand are actually so struck down by injury that an ill Scott Kuggeleijn and their assistant coach Luke Ronchi have been listed as substitutes alongside local boy R Majitha.
New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Henry Nicholls, 3 Tom Blundell, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Tom Latham (capt, wk), 6 Mark Chapman, 7 Colin de Grandhomme, 8 Jimmy Neesham, 9 Kyle Jamieson, 10 Hamish Bennett, 11 Tim Southee
India: 1 Mayank Agarwal, 2 Prithvi Shaw, 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Manish Pandey, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal, 10 Navdeep Saini, 11 Jasprit Bumrah