India vs New Zealand 2017, 3rd T20I: Match preview, team line-ups, head-to-head, pitch and weather conditions
Summary
Now tied at one match apiece in the T20I series, India and New Zealand will play out the final and deciding match of the series in Thiruvananthapuram.
After losing the first T20I, New Zealand bounced back in dominant fashion in match #2 at Rajkot, with openers Martin Guptill and Colin Munro setting up a significant partnership and propelling New Zealand to 196/2. Munro in particular was the star of the show, scoring an unbeaten 109 runs off 58 deliveries - remaining standing at the end.
A day before his 29th birthday, it was captain Virat Kohli who was perhaps the sole star of the Indian innings, scoring 65 runs off 42 deliveries, with MS Dhoni falling just short of a half-century with 49 runs.
Eventually, India fell short by a good 40 runs, even with 3 wickets to go.
The team will now want to return from that drubbing to seal the series, having won the ODI series 2-1.
Recent form (latest match denoted first):
India: L-W-L-W-W
New Zealand: W-L-W-W-W
Team news
Bowler Ashish Nehra played his last T20I - and match - in India colours in the 1st T20I, with Mohammed Siraj coming on in his place in the second match.
New Zealand star bowler Ish Sodhi continued his own run of form, scalping Hardik Pandya, and unlike his Indian counterparts effectively stemmed the flow of runs to the Men in Blue. Sodhi bowled most of his spell to Virat Kohli, which makes the feat that much more impressive.
Read more: Hits and misses from the second T20I
Pitch and weather
A day ahead of the match, the rain is bearing down in Thiruvananthapuram and could well threaten to wash out the match. It will be a quick outfield at Trivandrum's Greenfield International Stadium, which is also used for football, and according to pitch analysts and curators, test matches on the wicket, which was laid only recently, were high-scoring ones.
The boundary is only 70 yards, meaning it should be relatively easy to score boundaries. With big hitters on both teams, that also means a good spectacle for fans attending.
Predicted XI
India:
Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli (C), Dinesh Karthik, Manish Pandey, MS Dhoni (WK), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Siraj, Yuzvendra Chahal
New Zealand:
Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Tom Latham (wk), Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Henry Nicholls, Colin de Grandhomme, Mitchell Santner, Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Ish Sodhi