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| Praveen Kumar made two early breakthroughs and bowled three consecutive maidens in the tri-series opener against New Zealand in Dambull |
Ross Taylor, standing in for Daniel Vettori as New Zealand captain, called right and decided to bat on an unusually green pitch instead of chasing under the less-than-ideal lights in Dambulla. Kane Williamson, the promising top-order batsman who just turned 20, was given his international debut in a side loaded with seamers.
Taylor was confident of putting up a score of 250-260 which he thought would prove to be competitive.Both the spinners in the New Zealand squad, Jeetan Patel and Nathan McCullum, were left out of the playing eleven. Andy McKay, Daryl Tuffey and Kyle Mills will look forward to bowling in the evening when the ball tends to do a bit.
Virat Kohli made way for Yuvraj Singh in an Indian side that did not have any surprises. An ankle injury kept Ishant Sharma from making his ODI comeback, giving Abhimanyu Mithun his second game in the format. Ashish Nehra and Praveen Kumar were particularly effective in the recent Asia Cup final at the same venue and will look to continue their form albeit in the afternoon. Pragyan Ojha took the specialist spinning spot in Harbhajan Singh's absence, with Ravindra Jadeja retaining the role of fifth bowler.
India: 1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Dinesh Karthik, 3 Rohit Sharma, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 MS Dhoni (capt & wk), 6 Suresh Raina, 7 Ravindra Jadeja, 8 Praveen Kumar, 9 Abhimanyu Mithun, 10 Pragyan Ojha, 11 Ashish Nehra.
New Zealand: 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Peter Ingram, 3 Ross Taylor (capt), 4 Kane Williamson, 5 Scott Styris, 6 Grant Elliott, 7 Gareth Hopkins (wk), 8 Jacob Oram, 9 Daryl Tuffey, 10 Kyle Mills, 11 Andy McKay.
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