New Zealand skipper Mitchell Santner won the toss and opted to bat against India in the Champions Trophy final here on Sunday.
New Zealand made one change, bringing in Nathan Smith for injured Matt Henry, while India named an unchanged playing eleven.
It was for the 12th time in a row that India captain Rohit Sharma lost the toss in an ODI.
India have always found the resilient Kiwis a tall mountain to surmount, as the latter hold a 10-6 lead over their Asian rivals across all the ICC tournaments.
If curated further, New Zealand have a 3-1 edge over India in the ICC knockout matches. It`s a disturbing loop for them.
A section of the cricketing world has been vilifying them for the whole of last fortnight for having an unfair advantage because of their extended stay in Dubai.
Now, this argument will not have much merit to it because the Kiwis have already tasted the conditions here. India might still entertain a greater sense of comfort going into the title match, courtesy a spin quartet that showed enough nous to exploit a sluggish DICS deck.
In all probability, India will retain the four spinners and two pacers combination for the championship match., emotional bubble around Rohit, Kohli.
Varun Chakravarthy and Kuldeep Yadav, the right-hand and left-hand wrist-spinners, have bamboozled the opponents like illusionists.
But Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel have been the metronomes in this Indian bowling unit, tying down the batters in a matrix of accuracy and boredom while leading them to self-destruction.
If the final is indeed going to be played on the surface that is used for the game between India and Pakistan, then those four bowlers can put New Zealand in a spin, literally. Their biggest hopes of countering these Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be Kane Williamson and Rachin Ravindra, the most competent batters against slow bowlers in their line-up.
However, Kiwis will also be quietly confident that their own set of spinners ¿ skipper Mitchel Santner, Michael Bracewell, Ravindra and Glenn Phillips, can do a similar job.
Teams (from):
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohd. Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Varun Chakaravarthy.
New Zealand: Mitchell Santner (c), Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Tom Latham, Daryl Mitchell, Will O`Rourke, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Nathan Smith, Kane Williamson, Will Young, Jacob Duffy.
(With agency inputs)
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