This is the season of model examinations. Just as students across the country get ready for their upcoming boards, India and New Zealand have their own mock tests lined up ahead of the all-important T20 World Cup.
The five-match T20I series, starting at the VCA Stadium here on Wednesday (January 21, 2026), serves as the ideal dress rehearsal for Suryakumar Yadav’s Men in Blue and Mitchell Santner’s Black Caps.
With the 20-team extravaganza barely three weeks away, both sides — armed with almost full-strength squads — will want to dot their i’s and cross their t’s, much like studious students revising the chapters.
Indian head coach Gautam Gambhir, though, will have to make some revisions to his original plan due to injuries to Tilak Varma (sidelined for the first three matches) and Washington Sundar (ruled out of the series).
The home team will field its strongest available XI, which means pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah and talismanic all-rounder Hardik Pandya will be seen in action. Wicketkeeper-batter Sanju Samson, after a rather tumultuous period, will want to use these five games to solidify his spot at the top of the order.
When asked who among Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer will take Tilak’s spot, Suryakumar confirmed: “Kishan will play at No. 3. He is in our World Cup team. We had picked him first, and hence it is his place and responsibility. The scenario would have been different if we were talking about the No. 4 or No. 5 spots.”
For the Kiwis — buoyant after their ‘back-up’ team’s triumph over India in the ODI leg — the challenge will be to ensure that their T20 globetrotters, some of them coming from their franchise league commitments, hit the ground running efficiently and cohesively.
Nagpur 2016-2026
The viral 2016-2026 social media challenge has a curious sporting parallel this week. It was here, on March 15, 2016, that the New Zealand spinners — led by Santner (4-0-11-4) — fashioned a famous victory over India in a T20 World Cup fixture. Almost a decade later, as the teams return to the scene, can the Indian tweakers flip the script against Santner’s men?
The Kiwis seem to have made a happy habit of scripting history on Indian shores. After winning the Test series in 2024 and the ODIs recently, can they make it three in three by clinching the T20I series, or even better, the T20 World Cup?
They couldn’t have asked for a better mock test, for sure.
The teams (from): India: Suryakumar Yadav (Capt.), Axar Patel (Vice-capt.), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Rinku Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ishan Kishan (wk) and Ravi Bishnoi.
New Zealand: Mitchell Santner (Capt.), Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway (wk), Jacob Duffy, Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Bevon Jacobs, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Tim Robinson, Ish Sodhi and Kristian Clarke.
Match starts at 7 p.m.
