Toss New Zealand chose to bowl vs India
Mitchell Santner won the toss in the T20 World Cup final and elected to chase in Ahmedabad. Chasing in the night has been the way to go in matches between evenly-matched sides, but India have come to the final having launched a successful defence of a total in a night-time knockout match for the first time since the 2014 World Cup semi-final.
After all the talk of an offspinner against India’s left-hand-heavy top order, New Zealand omitted the one who took out Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton in one over in the semi-final. They instead gave Cole McConchie’s place to tall seamer Jacob Duffy. Amateur lip-readers suggested Suryakumar Yadav, India’s captain, asked Santner “no offspinner?” when the two captains exchanged team sheets.
In McConchie’s absence, New Zealand do have an offpsin option, that of Glenn Phillips, who didn’t bowl in the last match but was a handful on turning tracks in Test cricket when New Zealand whitewashed India in 2024-25.
India continued to put their faith in mysteryspinner Varun Chakravarthy, who went at 11.60 per over in the Super Eight. Eight of his leakiest spells have come in the last two-and-a-half months. However, he has also picked up at least one wicket in his last 21 matches, the fourth-longest such streak.
As expected, Abhishek Sharma kept his place despite a run of low scores. He has scored only one half-century in this World Cup.
India 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Tilak Varma, 5 Suryakumar Yadav (capt), 6 Hardik Pandya, 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Arshdeep Singh, 10 Jasprit Bumrah, 11 Varun Chakravarthy.
New Zealand 1 Tim Seifert (wk), 2 Finn Allen, 3 Rachin Ravindra, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Mark Chapman, 6 Daryl Mitchell, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Jimmy Neesham, 9 Jacob Duffy, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Lockie Ferguson
