India will commence their month long tour of New Zealand with the first T2OI to be played at the Eden Park in Auckland in short while from now. The Indians would look to improve on their rather poor T2OI record in New Zealand which reads 4 losses from 5 games. The Men in Blue would be high on confidence after winning series against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and West Indies at home. Meanwhile, New Zealand would come into the series on the back of a 2-3 loss against England.
Both the teams are batting with injuries to seasoned campaigners and hence would look to their young guns to step up the game. While Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Hardik Pandya have been ruled out because of injury, the Black Caps will be missing Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Lockie Ferguson.
Indian skipper Virat Kohli won the toss and elected to bowl first at Eden Park in Auckland.
Kohli: We're gonna have a bowl first. Looks a nice pitch to bat on. It might be hard to pick the ball up initially due to twilight. We're pretty much fine (from the travel) but we're fine now. We've played 50-over cricket (heading to this series) and are ready for T20 cricket.
Williamson: It was a 50-50 decision with the track being used.
Playing Eleven
India XI: Rohit Sharma, Lokesh Rahul(w), Virat Kohli(c), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami
New Zealand (Playing XI): Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson(c), Tim Seifert(w), Ross Taylor, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi, Blair Tickner, Hamish Bennett