India Will face New Zealand in the third match of the three-match ODI series. This article provides details about the playing 11 of India vs New Zealand for the third match of the series.
India Playing XI vs New Zealand – 3rd ODI, New Zealand tour of India 2026:
Openers: Shubman Gill (captain), Rohit Sharma
As was the case in the previous series against South Africa, after losing the last game of the ongoing ODI series against New Zealand, the Men in Blue find themselves in a do or die situation with the series on the line.
The opposition outclassed the home side in the batting department as the Blackcaps chased down the target of 285 runs with ease, while India found it difficult to deal with the Kiwi spinners in the middle stages of their batting innings.
The team management expects the batsmen to be a little more active than the last match.
The responsibility of playing aggressively from the first ball on a batsmen-friendly pitch will be on the opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Shubman.
Middle-order batsmen and all-rounders: Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy.
After the openers, the middle-order batsmen would like to correct the mistakes they made in Rajkot.
One such mistake was the strike rotation or lack thereof against the Kiwi spinners, which resulted in the team failing to score an extra 10-15 runs while batting first, which could have made the difference.
Having said that, it was not all doom and gloom for the home team as KL Rahul, who came in to bat at number five at a time when India were in a bit of trouble, scored a fighting century to help India put up a challenging score on the board.
Rahul hopes to continue his good performance at whatever number he bats in the next game and would also like the top four batsmen to give him a platform to take advantage.
Bowlers: Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna
If we talk about India’s bowling attack for this particular match, it is expected to include the same names that took the field in the second ODI.
Having said that, the Indian bowlers will hope to perform better in the series decider to stop New Zealand’s in-form batting lineup.
In the last match, players like Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna were ineffective after the ball became old, in which the conditions also played their role.
Apart from the above mentioned names, all eyes will be on Ravindra Jadeja who has been the talk of the town due to his lackluster performances with both bat and ball in recent times and the all-rounder will look to make decisive contributions.
All things considered, the bowlers would like the Indian captain to win the toss, so that he gets dry conditions to bowl in and a chance to have a say in the game.
