India opt to bowl in third T20I against New Zealand, Bumrah back

Toss India opt to bowl vs New Zealand

Suryakumar Yadav won the toss in the third T20I against New Zealand in Guwahati, and elected to bowl first with dew expected to play a role. India were looking to close out the five-match series after having won the first two games. They were gunning for an 11th series or tournament win in a row, which includes the T20 World Cup 2024 and the Asia Cup 2025.

India made two changes, giving rest to Varun Chakravarthy and Arshdeep Singh. They brought in Jasprit Bumrah and Ravi Bishnoi, who last played for India in February 2025. It meant Axar Patel, who cut his index finger during the first T20I, continued to sit out. In the absence of a communication from the BCCI, it might be safe to assume it might be more preventive than forced.

New Zealand made only one change, with Kyle Jamieson coming in for Zak Foulkes, who went for 67 runs in three overs in the last match. They wanted to play James Neesham as well, but he was down with a bug, and was expected to be right by the next match.

Guwahati's last two matches had been high-scoring ones: 237 played 221 four years ago, and 222 played 225 more recently in 2023.

New Zealand: 1 Tim Seifert (wk), 2 Devon Conway, 3 Rachin Ravindra, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Daryl Mitchell, 6 Mark Chapman, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Kyle Jamieson, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Jacob Duffy, 11 Ish Sodhi

India: 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 5 Rinku Singh, 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Harshit Rana, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Ravi Bishnoi