NEW DELHI: India skipper Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and chose to bat against New Zealand in the fifth and final T20I on Saturday, aiming to put up a strong total in the series decider.

India made three changes to their XI, bringing back Axar Patel, Ishan Kishan and Varun Chakravarthy. New Zealand, on the other hand, made four changes, with Finn Allen, Bevon Jacobs, Kyle Jamieson and Lockie Ferguson slotting into the playing XI.

Captains explain toss call

Suryakumar said the decision was influenced by the conditions and the desire to test India’s bowlers under pressure later in the evening.

“We are going to bat first. We were here last night and there was a lot of dew, so we want to test our bowlers by defending the total tonight. It looks like a good wicket. We had a good hit last night and the curator said it’s going to play true for the next 40 overs, no grass and it should be a good one.”

New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner said his side was treating the match as an important opportunity ahead of a crucial phase in their season.

“For us, it’s another opportunity tonight to put on a good performance. Same with India. Next week is where it becomes crunch time for us.”

Playing XIs

New Zealand: Tim Seifert (w), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, Bevon Jacobs, Mitchell Santner (c), Kyle Jamieson, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson, Jacob Duffy.

India: Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (w), Ishan Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Rinku Singh, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah.

(With PTI Inputs)