South Africa won the toss and decided to bowl against New Zealand
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details
Tabraiz Shamsi made the South Africa XI for the opening ODI © AFP
New Zealand’s wet summer was again on show, but conditions in Hamilton relented to allow a 34-over contest to open the one-day series. Both sides thought the pitch – the same one used for the Australia ODI earlier this month – would turn and picked two specialist spinners.
That meant a place for legspinner Ish Sodhi for New Zealand and left-arm wrist spinner Tabraiz Shamsi for South Africa. A knock-on for New Zealand was that Tom Latham would keep wicket instead of Luke Ronchi to make room for the extra bowler, with both allrounders, Jimmy Neesham and Colin de Grandhomme, in the XI ahead of paceman Lockie Ferguson.
South Africa also brought back Kagiso Rabada, who was rested from the T20, with Dane Paterson and Wayne Parnell dropping out of the side from two days ago.
AB de Villiers said the pitch felt a “a bit tacky” and, given the amount it had been undercover and the truncated nature of the match, it was little surprise he bowled first.
New Zealand’s top order has a very different look in this format with Latham, Dean Brownlie, Ross Taylor and Neil Broom back to bolster the line-up which appeared flaky in the T20.
New Zealand 1 Dean Brownlie, 2 Tom Latham (wk), 3 Kane Williamson (c), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Neil Broom, 6 Jimmy Neesham, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Colin de Grandhomme, 9 Tim Southee, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Trent Boult
South Africa 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Hashim Amla, 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 AB de Villiers (capt), 5 JP Duminy, 6 Farhaan Behardien, 7 Chris Morris, 8 Andile Phehlukwayo, 9 Kagiso Rabada, 10 Imran Tahir, 11 Tabraiz Shamsi
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
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Source: ESPN Crickinfo