Kane Williamson not playing: New Zealand have made as many as four changes to their Playing XI from the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 final.
Advertisement
During the first T20I of the ongoing New Zealand’s tour of India in Jaipur, India captain Rohit Sharma has won the toss and chose to field in the first-ever T20I at this venue.
“We will bowl first. The wicket looks good, thought behind is to have a score behind us, there was quite a lot of dew while practicing from a couple of days. It’s been good, has been only two days, been a quick turnaround, back from Dubai, spent a couple of days at home and back here,” Sharma told Star Sports at the toss.
India have made as many as six changes to the Playing XI which had played against Namibia in the recently concluded ICC T20 World Cup 2021 in Dubai last week.
Batter Shreyas Iyer, debutant all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer, all-rounder Axar Patel and fast bowling trio of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar and Mohammed Siraj have been included for Virat Kohli, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Rahul Chahar.
“We have Shreyas Iyer back. Venkatesh [Iyer] is debuting. Bhuvi [Bhuvneshwar Kumar], [Mohammed] Siraj and [Deepak] Chahar are back. We’re playing three seamers and two spinners. We have one eye on the next World Cup, it’s a lot of time ahead,” Sharma added.
Why is Kane Williamson not playing vs India?
New Zealand, on the other hand, have made four changes to their Playing XI which had played against Australia in the final match of the World Cup. While regular captain Kane Williamson has been rested for the whole series in a bid to let him prepare for the upcoming two-match Test series, all-rounder James Neesham, fast bowler Adam Milne and spinner Ish Sodhi have been rested for this match.
“We’d have bowled as well, keeping dew factor in mind. Pretty disappointed at not winning the World Cup but this is a great place to play cricket and the team is looking forward to it. Four changes for us – Mark Chapman, Todd Astle, Rachin Ravindra and Lockie Ferguson are in,” New Zealand stand-in captain Tim Southee told Star Sports at the toss.
Southee, 32, has led New Zealand in 19 T20Is in the past. Under Southee, New Zealand have won 12 and lost six T20Is.
