With an eye on the future, Hardik Pandya's India and Kane Williamson's New Zealand will take on each other in the first of the three T20Is to be played straight after T20 World Cup 2022. The first match will take place at Wellington and all eyes will be on the future players of Team India in this format. The prospect of Umran Malik, Arshdeep Singh bowling in tandem is already very exciting. Not to forget, there is some T20 batting richness in form of Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson. Shubman Gill has got a T20 call-up too for the first time too.
Rishabh Pant is the vice-captain in a team led by Hardik Pandya. This is a fresh change as selectors look for new leaders in this format. Hardik is the right guy to lead this squad as he has shown in the recent times with victory in IPL and then leading against Ireland in Ireland and winning that series too.
All 3 wicketkeeper and batters - Pant, Kishan and Sanju Samson - are expected to feature in the playing 11 first the 1st IND vs NZ T20I as predicted here. India must look to play these stars on a consistent basis so that they play fearless cricket an are unafraid to take on the world.
Keeper – Devon Conway
Batters – Shreyas Iyer, Glenn Phillips, Kane Williamson, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Finn Allen (vc)
All-rounders – Darryl Mitchell, Hardik Pandya
Bowlers – Harshal Patel, Lockie Ferguson, Mitchell Santner
India: Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Rishabh Pant, Washington Sundar, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Siraj
New Zealand: Finn Allen, Devon Conway, Kane Williamson, Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Lockie Ferguson, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi, Adam Milne