More than the match results, it might be the toss results which are heartening Kane Williamson as he once again the New Zealand captain lost the toss and for the third consecutive in this ODI series was invited to bat first by the Indian captain M.S. Dhoni. It was the seventh consecutive time when Kiwis lost the toss on this tour.

Dhoni did not tinker with the squad which lost the last ODI at Delhi whereas New Zealand brought in James Neesham in place of Anton Devcich.

Team India has arrived here with a roster consisting of only 14-members as Suresh Raina has still not recovered from Chikungunya and also may not feature in the 15-members squad that is to be announced tomorrow for the rest of 2 ODI’s.

Here is what both the captains said at the toss –

M.S. Dhoni: “I just flick it and wait for the opposition to call. But I have lost a few as well. I think I lost 29 out of 30. He’s keeping the same call. Mohali generally is a good surface to bat on, but with the dew factor, we are bowling first. We are sticking to the same side.”

Kane Williamson: “It’s one of the things you can’t control (about losing the toss), looks a good surface. It was nice feeling to get a win in the last game. We showed steps of improvement. It’s hard to say what will be a good score on this surface. We have one change, James Neesham comes in forAnton Devcich.”
New Zealand Playing XI: Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson(c), Ross Taylor, Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi(w), James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Matt Henry, Trent Boult
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni(w/c), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Umesh Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah