India T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav revealed that the wicketkeeper batter Ishan Kishan will play ahead of Shreyas Iyer in the upcoming T20I series against New Zealand, which is scheduled to start from January 21. SKY believes that Ishan is a part of India's T20 World Cup squad and a like-for-like replacement for an injured Tilak Varma being a left-hander
Suryakumar Yadav for Ishan Kishan's batting slot
Tilak, an automatic choice at number three, has undergone an abdominal surgery and is ruled out of the first three games against the BlackCaps. This has allowed Iyer to make a comeback to the T20I squad for the first three games. However, the skipper made it amply clear that Iyer is being looked at as a No. 5.
"Ishan will bat at number 3 because he is a part of our T20 World Cup team and he was picked in the squad first so it's our responsibility to give him a chance," he said in the pre-match press conference.
"He hasn't played for India for past one and half year and in the mean time consistently performed in domestic cricket," the Indian skipper did not leave any room for guess work.
"Since he (Ishan) has been picked for World T20, he deserves to play ahead (of Shreyas). Had it been a question of batting slots Nos 4 or 5, it would have been a different question altogether. Unfortunately, Tilak isn't there so Ishan is our best bet," he added.
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T20 World Cup 2026
The five-match T20I series against New Zealand will be India's last assignment before the T20 World Cup 2026 which is scheduled to start from February 7. Defending champions India will start their T20 World Cup 2026 campaign against the USA.
Suryakumar Yadav on verge of reaching new milestone
Suryakumar Yadav is on the verge of reaching a personal milestone during the first T20I against New Zealand as the stylish batter needs 25 more runs to complete 9,000 runs in T20 cricket (including T20Is, domestic T20s, franchise T20 cricket). If Suryakumar manages to do so then he will become the fourth Indian batter to score 9,000 T20 runs. The first on the list is Virat Kohli (13,543 runs), followed by Rohit Sharma (12,248 runs) and Shikhar Dhawan (9,797 runs).