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Where: Eden Park, Auckland
What to Expect: Most of Auckland's skyline is in keeping with the big cities of the Australian subcontinent, with tall towers flooding the CBD. Auckland of course also has the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere in the Sky Tower, which rises to over a 1000-feet and can literally be seen from any part of the city. And then you come to Eden Park, with its amoeba-like shape and rather picturesque grandstands and staggeringly short straight boundaries. Trying to get the exact description of the field itself is a futile exercise and does end up with you getting mixed up with your understanding of shapes. And it took the Eden Park Trust an equally complicated route to ensure that they held the country's first-ever day-night Test two years ago against England. It in fact took months of litigation and application submissions for the ground authorities to convince the City Council to let them hold a game that would finish not before 10 pm. Ironically, the two T20Is that the Kiwis will play here over the next three days will both finish well past 11 pm. Maybe it's got something to do with the Indians being in town. Neither team would complain about the relatively late start though considering the blazing sun they've had to train under since Kohli's men landed in the city.
Team News
New Zealand: Both Southee and Williamson have spoken about how this is a "different" group to the one that was humiliated in Australia during the Tests, in terms of personnel and the confidence they bring from being white-ball specialists. The Kiwis top-order is among the most seasoned in world cricket while Tim Seifert should fit in well into the middle-order. The absence of Trent Boult should open the door for Hamish Bennett to make a return after he finished as the highest wicket-taker in the domestic T20 tournament. That would leave the Kiwis with having to pick one each between their two spinners and their two seam-bowling all-rounders.
Probable XI: Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Kane Williamson (c), Ross Taylor, Tim Seifert (wk), Colin de Grandhomme, Daryl Mitchell/Scott Kuggeleijn, Mitchell Santner/Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Hamish Bennett, Blair Tickner
India: KL Rahul will keep wickets despite the presence of two specialist wicket-keepers in the squad. But whether that means Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson warm the bench or strangely play as specialist batsmen remains to be seen. There'll also be a selection call being made based on the odd ground coordinates, and that'll decide which of the two wrist spinners get a game and whether Ravindra Jadeja is preferred to Washington Sundar as the spinning all-rounder.
Probable XI: Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul (wk), Virat Kohli (c), Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar/Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav/Yuzvendra Chahal, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah
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