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, Christchurch on Thursday.
This is the first T20I meeting between the two teams after 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. 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 the bounce it’s going to offer, and based on that we made this decision. “Well, a lot of positives (came from playing against the West Indies), honestly, especially in our batting. 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
I think scoring 230, 250 in almost every alternate game was a plus for us.
After winning the toss, Iyer said Mayank and Nitish have replaced Prince Yadav and Shivam Dube in the playing eleven. 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.
