India won the toss in the third T20 International against New Zealand, but the skipper has chosen to strike first to challenge themselves.
Kolkata: India won the toss in the third T20 International against New Zealand, but the skipper has chosen to strike first to challenge themselves.
India has the record of winning only 12 out of 25 games in batting first, and thus, the skipper is preparing the boys for better performance in striking first.
Rohit Sharma said they want to see how the bowlers do when they are to defend a score, and thus, they would strike to be ready for the future.
He said, after the toss, “Pitch looks a little sticky, and we want to challenge ourselves as a batting unit. We gotta try various things, and this is one of them. We want to put runs on the board and give the new set of bowlers a target to defend”.
India has already won two out of the three games, winning the three-match T20 series against Kiwis. Thus, the Indian team is giving opportunities to the new players to show their skills and “trying various things”.
KL Rahul and Ashwin are given rest to make way for Ishan Kishan and Yuzuvendra Chahal.
“KL and Ashwin are rested. Ishan and Chahal come in. We are very clear as to what we want to do that’s why Ishan has to wait for his opportunity, Chahal as well, he has been a champion bowler for us,” he added.
Tim Southee is resting for the game and thus, Mitchell Santer walked to the field for the coin toss. He got what he wanted from the toss, field first.
He said, “Last few games it has been wet because of the dew. There has been dew throughout. Whatever we do we have to do it well. We have been close, lost a couple of phases, especially in the last game during the middle with the bat, we got off to a great start.. But that’s just the way. The Indian openers have come out and built partnerships. We are not far away and hopefully, we can put up a complete game today”.
Teams:
New Zealand (Playing XI): Martin Guptill, Daryl Mitchell, Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Tim Seifert(w), James Neesham, Mitchell Santner(c), Adam Milne, Lockie Ferguson, Ish Sodhi, Trent Boult
India (Playing XI): Rohit Sharma(c), Ishan Kishan(w), Venkatesh Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Harshal Patel, Yuzvendra Chahal
first published:Nov. 21, 2021, 6:46 p.m.