India won their eighth toss in a row in home Tests and chose to bat as the Holkar Stadium produced a surface full of cracks in its debut Test. Virat Kohli expected the pitch to be good to bat on for the first two days, and hoped India could put up a big first-innings total. Kane Williamson, back at the helm of the New Zealand side after missing the Kolkata Test with illness, said the pitch looked “a little tacky” and expected a bit of early help for his seamers.
Williamson replaced Henry Nicholls in New Zealand’s top order, while the allrounder James Neesham made his first appearance of the series, coming in for the left-arm quick Neil Wagner.
India made two changes too, both forced by injuries sustained in Kolkata. Gautam Gambhir came back into the Test side for the first time since August 2014, replacing Shikhar Dhawan who fractured his right thumb, while Umesh Yadav came in for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who suffered a back strain.
India lead the three-Test series 2-0, having won by 197 runs in Kanpur and by 178 runs in Kolkata.
India: 1 M Vijay, 2 Gautam Gambhir, 3 Cheteshwar Pujara, 4, Virat Kohli (capt), 5 Ajinkya Rahane, 6 Rohit Sharma, 7 R Ashwin, 8 Wriddhiman Saha (wk), 9 Ravindra Jadeja, 10 Umesh Yadav, 11 Mohammed Shami.
New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Tom Latham, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Luke Ronchi, 6 Mitchell Santner, 7 BJ Watling (wk) 8 James Neesham, 9 Jeetan Patel, 10 Matt Henry, 11 Trent Boult.
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