Team India won the toss and elected to bowl first in their fifth match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 against New Zealand in Dharamsala on Sunday, October 22. Skipper Rohit Sharma admitted that they felt that dew would be a big factor amid cold conditions at the picturesque HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala, which was the case on the eve of the match when they trained. Team India will be confident of chasing any target having done the same four times previously in the tournament but this time there was a massive change in the combination for the host nation.
With vice-captain Hardik Pandya unavailable, the Men in Blue brought in Suryakumar Yadav, a pure batter at No. 6 and Mohammed Shami, a frontline pacer to give a some sort of a balance to the line-up in the all-rounder's absence.
Hardik Pandya got injured in the last game against Bangladesh and the BCCI confirmed that he went for scans and was advised to rest from Sunday's game. The Indian vice-captain went to the NCA and will now link up with the side directly in Lucknow before the England match on Sunday, October 29. Pandya's absence and lack of any other pace-bowling all-rounder in the squad meant India had to make two changes in order to get the 6-5 combination as Shami replaced Shardul and Surya came in for the all-rounder.
New Zealand, on the other hand, went unchanged as they didn't rush Tim Southee, who was declared fit by stand-in skipper Tom Latham. Latham said that the Kiwis also wanted to bowl first with dew in mind but would take heart from the fact that teams batting first are winning if they put up a sizeable total on the board.
India playing XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
New Zealand playing XI: Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham (c&wk), Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson
