Virat Kohli won the toss and opted to bowl first.
For India, Rishabh Pant, Sanju Samson, Kuldeep Yadav, Navdeep Saini and Washinton Sundar miss out. While, for New Zealand, Darryl Mitchell, Tom Bruce and Scott Kuggeleijn miss out.
Playing XI:
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
Despite injury issues to key white-ball personnel like Shikhar Dhawan, Hardik Pandya, Deepak Chahar and Bhuvneshwar Kumar this past home season, the bench strength has come across adequate and raring to go for challenges ahead.
New Zealand, on the other hand, have had the upper hand against India. They had beaten the ‘Men in Blue’ 2-1 in the T20I series last year. The Black Caps also won 2-1 in the T20I series during their Sri Lankan tour, and then drew 2-2 at home against England in a five-match series.
Despite the recent good record in the shortest format, there is a downbeat mood in the hosts’ dressing room thanks to the 3-0 shellacking received in Australia over the past month.