New Zealand vs India — Match Centre

Prince Yadav to Glenn Phillips, no run, very full and Phillips drives straight to mid-off

SIX! Prince Yadav to Glenn Phillips, SIX, 110kph, slower ball. It's on a length outside off, Phillips picks it early, leans across a bit and hoists it handsomely over long-off for an 84m six

Prince Yadav to Glenn Phillips, no run, swings and misses! Phillips shapes to heave across the line by clearing his front leg. This hard length ball, however, bounces more than he expects

Prince Yadav to Glenn Phillips, no run, 131kph, good length on off, Phillips opens the face of the bat and pushes it towards short third man, who is positioned a bit square

Arshdeep Singh to Finn Allen, no run, 134kph, first full delivery in this over. In the blockhole and well outside off. Just inside the tramline and Allen can't lay bat on ball as he tries to squeeze it through the off-side

Arshdeep Singh to Glenn Phillips, 1 run, chopped into the off-side off the under-edge and the batters scamper across for a quick single. Arshdeep scores a direct-hit at the bowler's end but Phillips is comfortably in

SIX! Arshdeep Singh to Glenn Phillips, SIX, 132kph, straighter line on this occasion and Glenn Phillips puts it away. The right-hander stays back, clears his front leg and then swings across the line to pull it over deep backward square leg. Used his bottom hand to generate the power

Arshdeep Singh to Glenn Phillips, no run, Phillips finds the man at cover-point once again. Arshdeep persists with the length on the shorter side and that's been chopped to cover-point

Arshdeep Singh to Glenn Phillips, no run, 132kph, short of length delivery wide of off, chopped to cover-point off the back foot

Arshdeep Singh to Finn Allen, 1 run, change of ends for Arshdeep Singh. From over the wicket, he bowls an away-angling length ball. Finn Allen plays late to dab it between first slip and short third man

Mayank Yadav to Tim Seifert, no run, 140kph, back of a length

Mayank Yadav to Tim Seifert, 2 runs, 139kph, full toss from Mayank, Seifert clears his front leg and slams it through the covers. Tilak and NKR chase, the former flicks it back and the latter throws to keep the batters down to two

Mayank Yadav to Finn Allen, no ball, 1 run, chance! Full outswinger outside off, Finn Allen throws his bat at it and gets a fat edge that flies towards third man. Prince Yadav moves to his left and catches but flicks it back into play as the momentum takes him over the boundary rope. Mayank claps. Oh, he's overstepped. So, a free-hit for Tim Seifert

Mayank Yadav to Finn Allen, no run, 142kph, fullish ball angling in, Allen defends it to backward point with an opened bat-face

Mayank Yadav to Tim Seifert, 1 run, 142kph, Mayank starts with a full delivery that curls away. The line is close to off and Tim Seifert gets off the mark by driving it towards mid-off for a quick single

Tim Seifert and Finn Allen are at the crease. Tim Seifert is on strike. Mayank Yadav will open the attack

New Zealand's powerplay scores this series - 65/1, 43/3 and 58/1. Can they get off to a flier today? For India, Bhuvi has been omitted after three tough outings (0/49, 1/50 and 0/40). Mayank Yadav comes in for him and he'll start the proceedings for India. One slip in place and here we go...

The players and the match officials march out for the national anthems. India's first, followed by New Zealand's. The pre-match ritual is completed. Big roar from the sellout crowd

Most wins vs an opposition in a calendar year (FM sides) \nI0$\n7 India vs West Indies (2022) \n7 Australia vs Sri Lanka (2022) \n7 England vs Sri Lanka (2026)

Matt Fisher: [On on his unexpected selection and debut] Yeah, it all happened so fast. I got called into the team the day before and told I was playing. So, yeah, watching the fireworks at halftime, I think Santner said, and then during the game, it was pretty surreal, a little bit daunting if I'm honest. It was a tough day. It was a tough day for the bowlers. It was pretty extraordinary batting. [On how the team dealt with the difficult bowling performance] Well, obviously being one of the younger guys, the older fellas, they kind of met together and kind of fell through to me to just forget it and sometimes, batters can get on heaters, especially in T20 cricket. We went back and talked with Jake (Jacob Oram, bowling coach) about some plans, what we can do to combat that if they keep going again. But yeah, I think it's just trying to forget it as quick as possible and just confronting the new opportunity this game brings. [On this venue] I played the one Super Smash game here four years ago, so I'm kind of rallying around the boys and seeing what they say. They said try and get hit to the bigger pockets, obviously, which is square, and that's probably where the Indian batters were looking the last game. So I think if we can plan to get hit to the bigger sides and hope for kind of a spicier wicket, then we'll just adapt from there.

Teams:

New Zealand (Playing XI): Finn Allen, Tim Seifert(w), Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Bevon Jacobs, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner(c), Nathan Smith, Adam Milne, Jacob Duffy, Matthew Fisher

India (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson(w), Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer(c), Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Naman Dhir, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Mayank Yadav, Prince Yadav

Mitchell Santner: Another fresh start today. It does bounce a bit more here. Looks like another good pitch. If you get a start, you can cash in. We've talked about plans. Batting group, we've done well. Today's going to be tough to catch with the wind. They come really hard at us in the powerplay. Nathan Smith is back in for Kyle Jamieson.

Shreyas Iyer: We're going to bowl. Just following the same pattern. The intent, the positivity was there from ball one. The execution was phenomenal. The wind is following us everywhere, it's getting chillier. It's important to be ruthless. The boys have been given the same message. Everyone is in high spirits. Expecting bounce and seam movement. Ishan Kishan comes in for Vaibhav and Mayank comes in for Bhuvi.

India have won the toss and have opted to field

More from Doull and Fleming on the deck - "It looks absolutely fantastic. Greg Christensen, the groundsman, he said it's one of his best. It's got great numbers, similar to an Australian game a couple of years ago. You notice something as you walk out here though, quite soft around the edges here. Well, usually you have the other pitches that have been used during the season where we're preparing, but this is just straight rugby field or football field, and it's still quite soft. So when the ball is hit straight into it, you don't see the ball bouncing off. So batters have to be aware of the ball almost hitting a longer rather than what you think. So watch it today, watch it die. So it might just mean that the infield has come a bit closer, and there could be a bit of confusion with the running because it won't kiss off like it normally does. All right, well, it looks a great surface. It's been in here for 20 days."

Pitch Report: "What's the story from a weather point of view for the evening? A strong southwesterly (wind) coming across the ground, so it'll be a little bit miserable for the players. It'll get down to 12, 13, 14 degrees throughout the evening and hopefully that rain that has been sweeping across the ground stays away. Distances - 63m down the ground, 66m away to the eastern terraces, 63m away to the western terraces, and the wind is all blowing that way," says Simon Doull. Stephen Fleming, who captained NZ in the first-ever T20I - "Well, it (captaining at this venue) is difficult. It's about dimensions, and back in that game (NZ v AUS, 2005) the pitch was still going sort of up and down here, so you sort of swung it around about 30 degrees. But you still had short areas and the same here. They've just changed from being in the cow corners and the corners to straight up and down. So there's a real strategy that goes along with playing here these days. The players have talked about it, fast bowlers in particular get the ball going square, so that back of a length, trying to get some bounce out of this wicket."

Have the Kiwis recovered from the hammering they suffered in the previous game? To make matters worse, even the straight boundaries are short here at Eden Park. The highest T20I total in New Zealand is Australia's 245, which came in a successful run-chase at this very venue in 2018. Will that record come under threat today? Another run-fest seems to be on the cards. New Zealand will be forced into at least one change. Will there be any other tweaks? Will India try a different combination having already won the series? Stick around, answers coming up shortly...

India have played an awful lot of T20 cricket this year - 38 matches, to be precise, which is more than any other team. They've won 26 and lost 10, with back-to-back series losses in Ireland and England. India, however, have a very good record in New Zealand in the shortest format. They've been unbeaten in the last 10 T20Is (7 outright wins, 2 Super Over wins, 1 tied game) here. Sanju Samson's blazing 67, followed by 40s from Shreyas Iyer and Naman Dhir took India home in the opening game of the series. Despite chasing a lower target in the second game, India had their backs against the wall at 70/5, but Tilak Varma's 25-ball fifty under pressure coupled with handy contributions from Dhir and NKR helped India take a 2-0 lead. In Wellington, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was pushed up the order and he made a statement with a 19-ball 45. However, the 15-year-old's knock was completely overshadowed by Abhishek Sharma's sensational 38-ball 113. Knocks like that can completely demoralise the opposition.