Christchurch: India have brought back express pacer Mayank Yadav and seam-bowling all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy as skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to bowl first against New Zealand in the T20I series opener at the Hagley Oval Thursday.
This is the first T20I meeting between the two teams since this year’s T20 World Cup final in Ahmedabad, where India emerged triumphant to retain the title on home soil. India are hitting the ground running in New Zealand just four days after their series decider against the West Indies was rained out in Bengaluru.
After winning the toss, Iyer said Mayank and Nitish have replaced Prince Yadav and Shivam Dube in the playing eleven. This is the first time both Mayank and Nitish are playing T20I cricket in New Zealand. “Obviously a quick turnaround; I want to have a fair idea about how the wicket will play, how much bounce it’s going to offer, and based on that we made this decision.
“I think pretty well. A lot of them took a while to get accustomed to the conditions and also the weather, the time difference especially. But no complaints. We are a bunch of professionals, and everybody knows that in the dressing room.
“Well, a lot of positives came from playing against the West Indies), honestly, especially in our batting. I think scoring 230, 250 in almost every alternate game was a plus for us. Also bowling-wise, it wasn’t easy to bowl on smaller ground and flat wickets, but the boys showed a lot of character and that is the same attitude and approach we want to come here with,” he said.
New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner said he would have bowled first too in front of a sell-out home crowd, but felt that with the fresh pitch on offer, they would like to post big runs first.
“We were going to bowl. Looks like a fresh wicket. Guys are really excited for a big series. It’s cool to play against India. The depth we’ve got is really good. He (Bevon Jacobs) has shown what he can do, and brings a lot of power in the middle-order.”
Playing XIs
India: Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer (captain), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, and Mayank Yadav
New Zealand: Finn Allen, Tim Seifert (wk), Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Bevon Jacobs, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (captain), Nathan Smith, Adam Milne, Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson
Orissa POST – Odisha’s No.1 English Daily
