Nagpur: New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner won the toss and elected to bowl against India in the first T20I Wednesday.
New Zealand handed Kristian Clarke a debut. He will part of the pace battery, also including Kyle Jamieson and Jacob Duffy.
For India, Shreyas Iyer, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi and Kuldeep Yadav are missing out.
New Zealand is coming into the five-T20 series after winning the ODI series 2-1.
Teams:
India: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakravarthy
New Zealand: Tim Robinson, Devon Conway (w), Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner(c), Kristian Clarke, Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi, Jacob Duffy.
PTI