© Getty Images
New Zealand’s bid to pull one back despite losing the series was dealt a blow even before the toss, with Kane Williamson pulling out of the fourth T20I in Wellington with a left shoulder niggle. Tim Southee, his replacement, won the toss and decided to chase again, a formula that seemed to have worked for New Zealand up until the last over in Hamilton, where they were stalled by Mohammed Shami to force the game into a Super Over.
Williamson’s unavailability paved the way for Daryl Mitchell’s inclusion, while New Zealand also brought in batsman Tom Bruce in place of allrounder Colin de Grandhomme.
India rested Rohit Sharma, bringing in Sanju Samson to join KL Rahul at the top of the order, leaving the visitors with two wicketkeeping options. Samson was part of the shadow India A tour prior to linking up with the T20I squad following Shikhar Dhawan’s injury. He has so far played two T20Is in four years.
The other two changes were in the bowling department, with India bringing in Washington Sundar and Navdeep Saini in place of Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami.
“It’s either been easy wins or one-sided losses for us as a side, so winning in the Super Over in Hamilton was a massive confidence booster,” Kohli said. “The team is playing amazingly well. We haven’t played as well as a team in T20Is like we have so far this year, in a World Cup year.”
India: 1 Sanju Samson, 2 KL Rahul (wk), 3 Virat Kohli (capt), 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 Manish Pandey, 6 Shivam Dube, 7 Washington Sundar, 8 Shardul Thakur, 9 Yuzvendra Chahal , 10 Navdeep Saini, 11 Jasprit Bumrah
New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Colin Munro, 3 Tom Bruce, 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Daryl Mitchell 6 Tim Seifert (wk), 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Scott Kuggeleijn, 9 Tim Southee (capt), 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Hamish Bennett
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo