Mitchell Santner on the series:
“As a player you want to test yourself against the best teams in the world in all three formats, and to have a series at home to start our summer as big as India, it’s awesome. Not just kind of three games, it’s 12 games over the next month or so. It’s going to be a lot of challenging games, but some some good cricket and and some good crowds.
“Don’t think there’ll be a lot of spin out there unfortunately. But yeah, I think early season it could be could be a little bit in the pitch, but I still think it’ll be a very good pitch. Obviously the weather’s been been quite good. Late starts, it could be quite cold so there could be a little bit of dew as well which is never ideal. But it’s going to be a good start, first two games here, sellout crowds with some good weather, it’s no better place to start.”
Twenty20s head to head:
Played: 31
India won: 17
New Zealand won: 11
Tied: 3
Last meeting:
Twenty20 World Cup final: India won by 96 runs
Beating the host nation in a final was always going to be a tall order but the Black Caps did themselves no favours as India made the most of wayward bowling to amass the third-highest total at a Twenty20 World Cup match, reaching 255 for five, after being sent in by Mitchell Santner.
Their innings was set up brilliantly by openers Sanju Samson (89 from 46) and Abhishek Sharma (52 from 21), with the pair putting on 98 from the first seven overs as the New Zealand bowling attack just didn’t have an answer. Poor length and misdirected slower balls were consistently put away to the boundary. After Sharma was eventually removed by a wide delivery from Rachin Ravindra, edging behind to Tim Seifert, Samson then added a century stand with Ishan Kishan (52 from 25 balls) which took the game away from the Black Caps.
The Black Caps were left chasing a score two runs more than their highest ever T20 total, which came against Scotland. But they were similarly stumped with the bat, being bowled out for 159 with an over to spare.
How to watch:
Black Caps coverage returns to Sky Sport with the first game live on Three and ThreeNow. The first powerplay of all three Twenty20s will also be live on New Zealand Cricket’s TikTok account.
The Herald will have live blogs of every match of the tour while the Alternative Commentary Collective are calling every Black Caps game this summer.
TAB odds:
Series winner:
New Zealand $3
India $1.35
Game one:
New Zealand $2.25
India $1.62
Black Caps T20 squad
Mitchell Santner (captain), Finn Allen, Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Lockie Ferguson, Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Bevon Jacobs, Kyle Jamieson, Adam Milne, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Tim Seifert, Nathan Smith.
Indian T20 squad
Shreyas Iyer (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Ishan Kishan, Tilak Varma (vice-captain), Axar Patel, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Prince Yadav, Mayank Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Kuldeep Yadav
India’s tour schedule in New Zealand
1st T20, Christchurch, today 8pm
2nd T20, Christchurch, Saturday October 24, 8pm
3rd T20, Wellington, Tuesday, October 27, 8pm
4th T20, Auckland, Friday, October 30, 8pm
5th T20, Hamilton, Sunday, November 1, 8pm
1st ODI, Auckland, Wednesday, November 4, 3pm
2nd ODI, Wellington, Saturday, November 7, 3pm
3rd ODI, Hamilton, Tuesday, November 10, 3pm
4th ODI, Mount Maunganui, Friday, November 13, 3pm
5th ODI, Mount Maunganui, Sunday, November 15, 3pm
First test, Wellington, Thursday, November 19-23, 11am
Second test, Christchurch, Friday, November 27-December 1, 11am