India captain Virat Kohli won the toss and chose to bowl first against New Zealand in the first game of the five-match T20 series at Eden Park, Auckland on Friday.
India are taking on New Zealand fresh off their ODI series win against Australia at home. After winning the series against Australia, the Men In Blue will be keen on establishing their dominance over the Black Caps, who defeated them by 18 runs in the semifinals of the World Cup last year.
The Kiwis have had a good run in the shortest format recently but are low on confidence since their 3-0 drubbing by Australia in the Test series over the last month. The hosts will rely on the advantage of playing at home against the number one Test side in the world currently. India are number five in the T20 team rankings.
Teams:
India: Virat Kohli (capt), Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul (wk), Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, Shardul Thakur, Navdeep Saini, Washington Sundar.
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (capt), Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Scott Kuggeleijn, Colin Munro, Colin de Grandhomme, Tom Bruce, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert (wk), Hamish Bennett, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Blair Tickner.
