India opt to bowl, pick Nabi and Kamboj

Shubman Gill marked his return to international cricket with the right call at the toss, and chose to bowl in the first ODI of the five-match series in Auckland. The weather, with a bit of drizzle around, was the main reason for the call even though in the last two ODIs at Eden Park, teams batting under lights were dismissed cheaply. The toss was delayed by 20 minutes, and the start of the match by 10 minutes, but no overs were lost.

Apart from Gill, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer came back into the ODI side. Mohammed Siraj continued to stay out as India threw in Anshul Kamboj and Auqib Nabi into the XI. Both of them can hit down the order, which might have been a consideration. The spin department was manned by two allrounders in Naman Dhir and Axar Patel.

The injury to Devon Conway, a concussion on the eve of the match, opened the door for Tim Seifert to make his ODI comeback. Even Matt Henry, who collided with Conway during their fielding drills, stayed out of the XI. New Zealand left out one of their spin allrounders, Michael Bracewell, opting for an extra specialist batter, which brought in Henry Nicholls as well.

New Zealand 1 Will Young, 2 Tim Seifert, 3 Henry Nicholls, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Glenn Phillips, 6 Tom Latham (wk), 7 Mitchell Santner (capt.), 8 Nathan Smith, 9 Kyle Jamieson, 10 Blair Tickner, 11 Jacob Duffy

India 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Shubman Gill (capt.), 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Auqib Nabi, 9 Anshul Kamboj, 10 Gurnoor Brar, 11 Arshdeep Singh