India made a solitary change for the dead rubber against New Zealand in the third Test at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Friday. In a bid to salvage pride, having lost the series 0-2 already, India were put to field by the visiting Black Caps.
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With World Test Championship (WTC) points and a place in the final on the line, India opted against tinkering with the playing XI as Bumrah was the only change for the hosts. Coming in his place was fellow seamer Mohammed Siraj.
In a social media post, BCCI revealed the reason for India’s first-choice seamer missing out. “Mr Jasprit Bumrah has not fully recovered from his viral illness. He was unavailable for selection for the third Test in Mumbai,” said a social media post.
At the toss India captain Rohit Sharma acknowledged the team hasn’t played well having lost the Tests in Bengaluru and Pune after batting collapses in both.
“We accept that we didn’t play well this series. But this is an opportunity to correct that. Hopefully we can restrict them quickly,” said Rohit at the toss.
“Right now our focus is on this Test match. On the back of the mind you need to keep in mind about that (the WTC final), but right now we need to play our best cricket which we haven’t this series,” he added.
Meanwhile, New Zealand made two changes as they go for a clean sweep. Mitchell Santner, who had played a key role in India’s downfall in the second Test, misses with a side strain and Tim Southee went out. Replacing them in the playing XI are Matt Henry and Ish Sodhi.
“Reasonably good surface. Want to put runs on the board and put pressure later on. Focusing on this game. That’s what we did in Pune after Bengaluru win too. But last week was last week. New opportunity this game. It’s a funny game, Test cricket. In Sri Lanka we didn’t play all that badly but you can fall on the wrong side of the results. Not much has changed here, we’ve kept things simple,” said New Zealand skipper Tom Latham when they chose to bat having won the toss.
New Zealand ended India’s 12-year unbeaten run in home Test series going back to 2012. Since then, India had won 18 Test series in a row until the defeats in October brought that streak to a halt.
India vs New Zealand teams:
New Zealand XI: Tom Latham(c), Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell(w), Glenn Phillips, Ish Sodhi, Matt Henry, Ajaz Patel, William ORourke
India XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant(w), Sarfaraz Khan, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Akash Deep, Mohammed Siraj
