New Zealand and India are playing the second game of the five-match T20I series at Eden Park in Auckland. The hosts won the toss and decided to bat first.
They played the first T20I of this series on last Friday (24th January). While New Zealand scored 203/5 (20 overs) in the first innings after losing the toss,
However, India chased down that target in 19 overs after losing four wickets. Thus, India managed its highest successful T20I chase outside India.
Coming back to this match, New Zealand captain Kane Williamson won the toss and decided to bat first. They have fielded same playing XI of the last game.
New Zealand vs India 2020: Toss Report, 2nd T20I Auckland –
Williamson said after winning the toss, “We are gonna have a bat. Obviously, it’s an used surface and we are not expecting much dew tonight. We wanna do the job first-up and assess the conditions. There were some very good signs in the last match in all the departments. But in this T20 format, there are very small margins that can define result. It’s important that we execute our plans again and put up a strong performance. For us, it’s about going out and playing with the freedom. We are playing the same team.”
We wanted to field first – Virat Kohli
After losing the toss, Indian captain Virat Kohli confirmed that they maintained the latest winning combination.
Indian captain Virat Kohli said, “Same thing, happy days (on both teams getting to do what they wanted). We had a brilliant chase the other night and we wanted to field first. We were talking in the dug-out that had me and KL batted through, we would have won with two overs to spare. I think, it’s a gun wicket, they were looking good to get 230 at one stage, we came back well with the ball too in the last game. Chasing falls into the strengths we have in our side so we want to field first.
“Four days into the tour, we are sleeping much better, I think we had the best sleep last night. We were happy with the performance, I don’t think there was any jet lag. We are going in with the same team. We want to do better in the field. We can stop extra 10-15 runs. I know the dimensions are different here, we are not used to these kind of dimensions but we have an understanding of what we need to do in the field so that’s something we are looking to improve on tonight.”
New Zealand vs India 2020:
Here are the playing XIs of both the teams:
New Zealand playing XI: Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson (c), Colin de Grandhomme, Ross Taylor, Tim Seifert (wk), Mitchell Santner, Blair Tickner, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi, Hamish Bennett
Indian playing XI: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul (wk), Virat Kohli (c), Shreyas Iyer, Shivam Dube, Manish Pandey, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Yuzvendra Chahal, Jasprit Bumrah