Toss New Zealand chose to bat v India
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BJ Watling, who replaced Luke Ronchi, was playing his first ODI since 2013 © Associated Press
New Zealand won their first toss of the tour in eight matches, and opted to bat against India in the fourth ODI in Ranchi. Kane Williamson, their captain, termed a wicket as a “tired” one, and picked three spinners, which meant recalls for legspinner Ish Sodhi and left-arm spinning allrounder Anton Devcich, along with another left-arm spinning allrounder Mitchell Santner. New Zealand also gave BJ Watling his first match of the ODI series in place of Luke Ronchi, who had managed all of seven runs in three games. Seam-bowling allrounder Corey Anderson and fast bowler Matt Henry missed out from the previous ODI in Mohali.
Williamson’s decision went down well with India’s captain MS Dhoni, who said the hosts were looking to bowl first, citing the dew factor. India made an enforced change with Dhawal Kulkarni, replacing Jasprit Bumrah, who was “not 100%”, according to Dhoni.
In contrast to New Zealand, India left out the third spinner in Jayant Yadav and stuck to three seam-bowling options in Umesh Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, and Hardik Pandya.
India, leading the five-ODI series 2-1, were chasing their first bilateral series win since Nov 2014 aside from whitewashing Zimbabwe twice.
India: 1 Rohit Sharma, 2 Ajinkya Rahane, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Manish Pandey, 5 MS Dhoni (capt. &wk), 6 Kedhar Jadhav, 7 Axar Patel, 8 Hardik Pandya, 9 Umesh Yadav, 10 Amit Mishra, 11 Dhawal Kulkarni
New Zealand 1 Tom Latham, 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Kane Williamson (capt.), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Anton Devcich, 6 BJ Watling (wk), 7 James Neesham, 8 Mitchell Santner, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Trent Boult
Deivarayan Muthu is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo