India eye winning start in Christchurch as five-match T20I series against New Zealand begins

India look to overcome travel fatigue for series opener at Hagley Oval

Hello and welcome to live coverage of the first T20I of the five-match series between India and New Zealand at Hagley Oval in Christchurch. Led by Shreyas Iyer, the visitors will look to overcome travel fatigue and make a winning start to their long tour of New Zealand.

India arrive after winning gold for the second successive time at the Asian Games and playing out a hard-fought drawn home series against the West Indies. They travelled soon after sharing the home series and have had barely two days to rest, adjust to the conditions and train.

The visitors have won their last two T20I series in New Zealand and will aim to continue that run. However, pace-friendly conditions and the absence of key players could make the opening match a challenging test. India will be without all-rounder Hardik Pandya, who is injured, while pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah will feature only in the ODI and Test series on this tour.

New Zealand plan to adapt as pitches change across the tour

New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner expects conditions to change as the series moves across the country. He believes offering flat pitches to India’s power-packed batting line-up may not be the best approach.

"If there is something in the pitch for the seamers to start, it’s obviously nice, but throughout the series we’re going around the country, they’re not all going to be green seamers and flying around. So both teams are going to have to adapt quickly to the conditions and then play accordingly," Santner said.

Santner will hope his own big-hitters, including Glenn Phillips and Finn Allen, can match the Indian stars. The injury-forced absence of Rachin Ravindra has also opened the door for veteran Devon Conway to move up the batting order.

Bowling concerns and returning faces for India

Veteran pacer Bhuvneshwar Kumar returns to the team after nearly four years, while mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy is also back after regaining fitness. Their return could help India address some of their bowling concerns.

Questions remain over the abilities of all-rounders Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shivam Dube. India prefer to bat deep, often extending their batting line-up to number eight, and are unlikely to abandon that approach to add more strength to their bowling attack.

Iyer has admitted that bowling is the area India need to improve. For Iyer, the series offers an opportunity to prove himself in difficult overseas conditions. His tenure as captain began with back-to-back defeats in Ireland and England. He is expected to lead India at the T20 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in two years’ time.

Milestones and experience in Christchurch

Indian wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan is closing in on several milestones ahead of the five-match T20I series. He needs just 46 runs to become the seventh Indian player to score 2,000 runs in T20Is. The left-hander is also on the verge of breaking Suryakumar Yadav’s record for the most T20I runs by an Indian in a calendar year.

Kishan, who has been in sensational form at number three, will get his first opportunity in the series opener in Christchurch on Thursday.

Only four batters in India’s current squad have previously played T20Is in New Zealand: captain Shreyas Iyer, Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson and Shivam Dube. India’s most recent T20I match on New Zealand soil came in 2022 in Napier. The rain-hit game ended in a tie under the Duckworth-Lewis method.

Abhishek Sharma, Tilak Varma and 15-year-old sensation Vaibhav Sooryavanshi bring plenty of firepower to the batting line-up. Abhishek and Samson impressed during the home series against the West Indies. Sooryavanshi is likely to warm the bench, but India still have plenty of batting firepower.

Iyer, however, sounded confident about his team’s ability to adapt to different conditions. Mitchell Santner’s New Zealand will look to put Iyer and his team under pressure.