Team India, which is still struggling from the nightmare of twin debacle at Australia and England, will start its new mission of redemption with the test series against New Zealand. The matches kick off on 23rd August, Thursday at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad. The season of test series begins immediately after an amazing player VVS Laxman retires from the international cricket. Will it be unfortunate for team India or not, time and team- both will decide this!
Visiting guests in India, the Kiwis will strive really hard to conquer their consistency and triumph the series. It would not be wrong to say that the test series commencing in just two days will be quite dramatic for the spectators as well as exhilarating for the teams because both teams are going through the transitional phase.
As far as Indian side is concerned, Gautam Gambhir and Virendra Sehwag will forge some of their best performances and will go for a combination that would be hard to break. Pujara will take up number three position, replacing ‘The Wall’ Rahul Dravid. However, it is believed that Pujara is quite in sound temperament and follows the same technique as Dravid. And of course, Team India and the spectators had been missing the immortal Tendulkar who will be seen in the series with a bang! In the bowling side, Zaheer Khan, R. Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha will control the fall of wickets.
For the Kiwis, injury of veteran Vettori is quite unfortunate. Everyone in the Kiwis team will surely miss his bowling. Martin Guptill and BJ Watling along with other senior players like Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor will ensure the mountain of score is maintained. As far as bowling is concerned, New Zealand does have a team of excellent pace bowlers. India definitely will enjoy the home conditions and in the series are seen as the favorite too.
India : Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag,Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Subramaniam Badrinath, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Zaheer Khan,Pragyan Ojha, Umesh Yadav, Ajinkya Rahane, Piyush Chawla, Ishant Sharma, Suresh Raina.
New Zealand : Ross Taylor (capt), Trent Boult, Doug Bracewell, Daniel Flynn, James Franklin, Martin Guptill, Chris Martin, Brendon McCullum, Tarun Nethula, Jeetan Patel, Tim Southee, Kruger van Wyk, Neil Wagner, Bradley-John Watling, Kane Williamson.
Umpires: Ian Gould (ENG) and Steve Davis (AUS)
Match referee: Chris Broad (ENG)
Ind vs NZ First Test Live Score
You can check the Complete Scorecard Here as well.
