India skipper Virat Kohli on Friday won the toss and opted to bowl in the first T20I of the five-match series at Eden Park in Auckland.
For India, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar and Rishabh Pant are not playing, whereas New Zealand kept Daryl Mitchell and Scott Kuggeleijn on the bench.
“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,” said Kohli after winning the toss.
Meanwhile, New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson said: “It was a 50-50 decision with the track being used. We would want to get some runs on the board first and then defend it. The two guys missing out are (Daryl) Mitchell and (Scott Kuggeleijn).”
Here are the Playing XIs of both the teams:
India: 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: 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