New Zealand have announced their 14-member squad for the five-match ODI series against India, which begins January 23. Led by Kane Williamson, the Blackcaps have brought in Mitchell Santner, Tom Latham and Colin de Grandhomme as new entrants.
Jimmy Neesham and Tim Seifert are the two absentees from the squad which mauled Sri Lanka 3-0 as the former suffered a grade one hamstring strain in the third ODI against Sri Lanka and will miss the first three ODIs against India, with a future place down to fitness.
Santner makes a return after 10 long months after recovering from knee surgery. However, he did feature in a T20 match against Sri Lanka last Friday.
New Zealand coach Gary Stead said the squad had been selected keeping in mind two priorities -- first planning for the World Cup and secondly to give the Kiwis the best possible chance of winning the series against world no.2 India.
“Our two main priorities have been to select and prepare a squad capable of winning what is shaping as a massive series against India, and gathering as much information as possible ahead of the ICC Cricket World Cup in England and Wales”, said Stead, according to New Zealand Cricket.
“Tom and Colin are experienced players in this format and will offer quality in their respective roles, and Mitch and Doug showed us what they are capable of during the T20 on Friday night.”
The five-match series gets underway from January 23 with the first ODI being held in Napier. The Men in Blue are currently playing Australia in a three-match series which is levelled at 1-1 at the moment, with the third and final ODI set to be played in Melbourne.
New Zealand ODI squad: Kane Williamson, Trent Boult, Doug Bracewell, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Colin Munro, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor.
India ODI squad: Virat Kohli(c), Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Kedar Jadhav, MS Dhoni, Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, K Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammed Shami, Vijay Shankar, Shubman Gill.
