Three days after playing the T20 World Cup Final, New Zealand will be back on the field, on an away tour, to face India in the first of the three T20Is at Jaipur.
This is too much cricket especially in bio-bubble times but that is also a post-pandemic reality that the cricketers have accepted.
Kane Williamson is sitting out and so does Kyle Jamieson so the Black Caps will be led by Tim Southee.
From India, Virat Kohli, Jasprit Bumrah, Ravindra Jadeja and Mohammed Shami have been rested and all eyes will on the new faces in the Indian camp.
This will be also the first assignment for Rahul Dravid as the new head coach and Rohit Sharma as the new T20 captain of the national side.
It will be interesting to see the India XI. There ara couple of new faces in the team in form of Venkatesh Iyer, Avesh Khan and Harshal Patel. However, they may not get a place instantly in the first match. Expect India to go with in tried and tested players.
With Ishan Kishan playing, where does KL Rahul or Rohit Sharma play will be an interesting thing to see as well. Or whether Kishan drops down to 3?
Predicted XI
India Probable XI: Rohit Sharma (c), Ishan Kishan, KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), R Ashwin, Axar Patel/Harshal Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar/Mohammed Siraj, Deepak Chahar, Yuzvendra Chahal.
New Zealand Probable XI: Daryl Mitchell, Martin Guptill, Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Tim Seifert (wk), James Neesham, Mitchell Santner, Lockie Ferguson, Tim Southee (c), Ish Sodhi, Trent Boult.
The match starts at 7 pm IST and the toss will take place at 6.30 pm IST.
