India have once again left Varun Chakravarthy out of the playing XI for the fourth T20I against New Zealand at Visakhapatnam’s ACA-VDCA Stadium. The spinner took three wickets across the first two T20Is, but since then, the Suryakumar Yadav-led team has opted for Kuldeep Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi as the two specialist spinners. While giving Varun a break ahead of the T20 World Cup was understandable, sitting him out for consecutive matches raises questions, especially as Bishnoi is not part of India’s World Cup squad.
Meanwhile, the Men in Blue are playing an extra bowler in the fourth T20I. Ishan Kishan, who suffered a niggle in the third T20I, was ruled out of the match, and Arshdeep Singh replaced him in the playing XI. After the toss, Suryakumar also confirmed that Axar Patel is yet to gain full fitness and will sit out of the fourth T20I.
“Arshdeep comes in for Ishan Kishan, who picked up a niggle in the last game. Axar Patel still needs a bit more time, so hopefully we’ll see him in the next game. The batters will need to take a bit more responsibility, but at the same time not shy away from playing with fearless intent. We’ve got five good bowling options today, so we’ll see how it goes,” Suryakumar said after the toss.
New Zealand make one change
New Zealand have made just one change to their playing XI as out-of-form Zak Foukes has replaced Kyle Jamieson. Captain Mitchell Santner confirmed that James Neesham and Lockie Ferguson are not yet ready to return to the playing XI. New Zealand are arguably keeping them out with the T20 World Cup in mind.
New Zealand (Playing XI): Tim Seifert (wk), Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner (c), Zakary Foulkes, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Jacob Duffy
India (Playing XI): Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Suryakumar Yadav (c), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Harshit Rana, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Jasprit Bumrah