Rohit Sharma stuns with India’s XI vs NZ: No Gill, Akash Deep; two comebacks

India captain Rohit Sharma sprang in a surprise at the toss of the India vs New Zealand first Test at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The toss took place at 8:45 am to accommodate an early start on Day 2 after first day’s play without a ball being bowled. Avoiding the temptation to use the overcast conditions, Rohit had no hesitation in opting to bat first after winning the toss on Thursday. But the bigger surprise was in India’s playing XI.
India made two changes to their XI that beat Bangladesh 2-0 in the two-match series – they had played both Tests with the same team. Shubman Gill, India’s designated No.3 was replaced by Sarfaraz Khan. “Shubman Gill was unavailable for selection of the first Test due to neck stiffness,” BCCI said.
Even though Gill was spotted with the rest of the Indian cricketers in Chinnaswamy on Thursday it was learnt that the right-handed batter has been struggling with stiffness in his neck for the last couple of days.
The other change was in India’s bowling attack. Left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav was picked ahead of pacer Akash Deep as India, contrary to the popular belief on wet and overcast conditions, went in with three specialist spinners instead of an extra seamer.
Rohit said the Indian team management considered the conditions while picking the XI. Because the pitch had been under covers for more than two days, Rohit said, it was likely to be damp, and therefore, India did not want to bat last.
“(The pitch has) been under the covers for a couple of days and we do understand it will be sticky to start with. Keeping that in mind, we wanted to put runs on the board,” he said.
India beat Bangladesh with a session to spare despite losing two and half days’ of to rain and wet outfield in Kanpur against Bangladesh so there is no reason to believe they cannot do the same with four days against New Zealand. Rohit, however, was measured in his response.
“Look, it’s a tricky one because you lose the entire day and have four days to play. A lot can happen over the four days as well and you want to get the result as much as possible. The last few Tests we played, we played well and we can get confidence from that and the table looks brilliant,” Rohit said.
India and New Zealand will play two more Tests, at Pune from October 24-28 and at Mumbai from November 1-5.
India XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj
New Zealand XI: Tom Latham (c), Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Blundell (wk), Glenn Phillips, Matt Henry, Tim Southee, Ajaz Patel, William O’Rourke.