Reddy and Lennox come in; New Zealand ask India to bat in Rajkot

Shubman Gill said he would have batted first anyway and that there wasn't much dew at the venue when they trained the night before

Toss New Zealand chose to field vs India

Michael Bracewell called right at the toss to deny India a rare hat-trick of toss wins after losing 20 in a row. New Zealand disregarded the venue record of four successful defences in four matches and decided to chase, hoping dew would come to their aid in the night. It is not just about gripping the ball, but the pitch starting to skid on in the evening.

India's captain Shubman Gill said he would have batted first anyway. He reported there wasn't much dew at the venue when they trained the night before. He also said he had inputs that the pitch tended to slow down.

Both sides made one change each. India were forced to get in a replacement for the injured Washington Sundar. Nitish Kumar Reddy, already in the squad, was preferred to Ayush Badoni, which also suggests the pitch was not expected to help the slower bowlers too much. It also meant that Arshdeep Singh continued to stay on the bench.

New Zealand replaced legspinner Adithya Ashok with debutant left-arm spinner Jayden Lennox. In List A cricket, Lennox has gone at a little over four and over and has taken 1.25 wickets per match.

India: 1 Shubman Gill (capt), 2 Rohit Sharma, 3 Virat Kohli, 4 Shreyas Iyer, 5 KL Rahul (wk), 6 Ravindra Jadeja, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Harshit Rana, 9 Kuldeep Yadav, 10 Mohammed Siraj, 11 Prasidh Krishna

New Zealand: 1 Devon Conway, 2 Henry Nicholls, 3 Will Young, 4 Daryl Mitchell, 5 Glenn Phillips, 6 Mitchell Hay (wk), 7 Michael Bracewell (capt), 8 Zak Foulks, 9 Kristian Clarke, 10 Kyle Jamieson, 11 Jayden Lennox