India won the toss and elected to bowl first against New Zealand in the second T20I at the Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium in Raipur on January 23.
India made two changes to their playing XI as Jasprit Bumrah and Axar Patel sat out of the fold to make room for Harshit Rana and Kuldeep Yadav.
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What did the captains say after the toss?
India captain Suryakumar Yadav, after winning the toss, said:
"We are going to bowl first. There is already little bit of dew out there, we haven't chased in recent times, so we want to chase. I think it (the pitch) looks good. I think it's the same wicket they said, which was used for the ODI series. I think we play every game, we try and improve on all the aspects. We never get perfect. We are always learning. But yeah, we look to do the same things again. We try and do the same thing in the bowling department, fielding and batting. We have two changes - Axar is missing out because he got hit in the last game. And Bumrah is resting tonight. So Harshit and Kuldeep come in.."
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Meanwhile, Kiwi skipper Mitchell Santner, after losing the toss, said:
"We would have also bowled. I just think the ground’s already wet. I don’t think it’s going to get any better for us. Every time you play against a quality side in their home conditions, you’ve got to learn, and we did. Obviously, the way they came out with the bat throughout the whole innings, they came out pretty hard. So we know that now on the bowling side. We’ve just got to be a little bit clearer with our plans and try to squeeze them a little bit more. We’ve got three changes - Seifert for Robertson, Christian Clark is out, Zak Foulkes is in, and Matt Henry is in for Jamieson."
India (Playing XI):
Sanju Samson(w), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy
New Zealand (Playing XI):
Devon Conway, Tim Seifert(w), Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner(c), Zakary Foulkes, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Jacob Duffy