India v New Zealand T20I Series: Team India eye first ever T20I win against Black Caps

Moneycontrol News

A resurgent New Zealand side is set to take on India in the first Twenty20 International (T20I) in Delhi on Wednesday.

The match will kick-off the second stretch of New Zealand's limited overs tour of India. The T20I series comprises of three matches.

The Black Caps made the home team work hard in the One Day International (ODI) series. They defeated India by six wickets in the first match before India levelled the series in a controversy-marred second ODI. India then defeated New Zealand by six runs, in what, according to many, was a "perfect" final.

India have never defeated the Black Caps in this format. The two sides have met six times in T20I across bilateral and International Cricket Council (ICC) tournaments, of which New Zealand has won five while one yielded no result.

Schedule

1st T20I: November 1, Delhi

2nd T20I: November 4, Rajkot

3rd T20I: November 7, Thiruvananthapuram

The Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram will be hosting its first ever international cricket match, becoming the 50th venue in India to do so. The capital of Kerala had last hosted an international match 29 years ago, at the university ground.

Squads

India: Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, KL Rahul, Hardik Pandya, Ashish Nehra, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah, Shreyas Iyer, Mohammed Siraj, Manish Pandey, Axar Patel, Shikhar Dhawan, Dinesh Karthik, Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal.

New Zealand: Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Ross Taylor, Todd Astle, Tom Bruce, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham , Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Henry Nicholls, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Tim Southee.

At the end of the series, Team India will bid farewell to veteran Indian pacer Ashish Nehra, who had announced his retirement from all formats of the sport earlier this month.

What to expect

Indian captain Virat Kohli, who recently scored his 32nd ODI ton and became the fastest to cross 9,000 ODI runs, will be hoping to continue his form going into the T20Is. Rohit Sharma ended the ODI series with a brilliant knock of 147 and would also be hoping to replicate it in the shortest format of the game.

Tom Latham scored 206 runs in the three ODIs while Ross Taylor scored 155. Bumrah and Southee took six wickets each while Bhubaneswar Kumar picked up five.

Nehra would also be hoping to end his career on a high. The 38-year-old Delhi pacer has picked 28 wickets in the 26 T20I matches he has played.

Heat, Haze and Rain

The players will be experiencing different weather conditions across the series. According to weather forecasts, Delhi is expected to be slightly hazy; Rajkot will see temperatures just short of 40 degrees Celsius and rain could lash Thiruvananthapuram on match day.

India will be looking to bury the ghost of never having won against New Zealand in T20Is, while the visitors would be hoping to not only keep their marvelous record intact, but also bag a bilateral title on Indian soil.