New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson’s initial squad of nine spent a little over an hour at the Brabourne Stadium here on a dull and humid Saturday morning. They confined their activity to catching practice and played a physical game that resembled the Indonesian sport of Sepak Takraw.
The ground staff had the nets ready, but the Kiwi players and batting coach Craig McMillan — awaiting the news of those being picked from its A-team — decided to just have a warm-up.
By noon, the New Zealand selectors announced the full squad which will play three ODIs and as many Twenty20 matches against India in a time span of 17 days.
The New Zealand selectors picked six players from the New Zealand-A team which will complete its engagements with a final one-dayer at Visakhapatnam on Sunday against India-A.
Williamson’s team will begin the tour with two warm-up games against the BCCI President’s XI at the Brabourne Stadium on October 17 and 19.
India will play the limited-over series against New Zealand before a full series against Sri Lanka involving three Tests, as many ODIs and T20s.
After making a clean sweep of the away series in Sri Lanka, the home team led by Virat Kohli called the shots in the five-match ODI series against Australia, with wrist spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav baffling the Australian batsmen.
Chahal and Kuldeep would be waiting with anticipation for a duel with a highly competitive group of New Zealand batsmen in Williamson and opener Tom Latham, Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor and Colin Munro.
Williamson’s team has not played an international game since the ICC Champions Trophy in England in June where it lost to Bangladesh at Cardiff. But now, the New Zealanders are in a country where they proved to be worthy opponents last year.
The New Zealand squads:
ODIs: Kane Williamson (captain), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor and George Worker.
T20s: Kane Williamson (captain), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Tom Bruce, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Henry Nicholls, Adam Milne, Colin Munro, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi and Tim Southee.
