India vs New Zealand T20 series preview : An important dress rehearsal before an all important world cup.

After being emphatically outplayed in all departments in the ODI series, New Zealand will look to do a rare treble on Indian soil as they look to win their first ever T20 series starting Wednesday, Jan 21st. 

A lot of the main players of the kiwis are back, including Mitchell Santner and James Neesham, who have been playing domestic tournaments in the build up to the world cup. Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra are back too as they look to fire at the top. Kyle Jamieson and Kristian Clarke, who were part of the ODI set up, will be supported by Ish Sodhi, Matt Henry and Jacob Duffy who has earned his maiden call up to the squad. 

The hosts too will welcome Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya back as they too were given much needed rest ahead of the showpiece event. The rest of the squad almost remains the same barring one major change where Tilak Verma, who has been ruled out of the first 3 games has been replaced by Shreyas Iyer. Ravi Bishnoi too has been called to replace the injured Washington Sundar. 

The T20 extravaganza kicks off in Nagpur and then is followed by games in Raipur, Trivandrum, Guwahati and Vizag as both teams look to fine tune before the T20 world cup that kicks off on 7 Feb.

India T20I Squad:

Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer (first three T20Is), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel (vc), Rinku Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravi Bishnoi.

New Zealand T20I Squad

Mitchell Santner (c), Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Bevon Jacobs, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Tim Robinson, Ish Sodhi.

Fixtures

1st T20I: Jan. 21, Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Nagpur

2nd T20I: Jan. 23, Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Cricket Stadium, Raipur

3rd T20I: Jan. 25, ACA Stadium, Guwahati

4th T20I: Jan. 28, Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam

5th T20I: Jan. 31, Greenfield International Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram