Shreyas Iyer's record at the toss was boosted to 16 wins and six losses after he called correctly again in Christchurch. Despite the match being played on a used pitch, on which India chased 226 on Thursday, the visitors had no hesitation in choosing to field once again. Dew had played a significant part at the end of the first match, and was expected to do the same.
There was a big change for India with an injury to Ishan Kishan paving the way for the 15-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi to feature in the starting XI. He was listed at No. 3 in the team sheet, though that is not binding. India made another change, a "tactical" one in Iyer's words: Prince Yadav replaced Mayank Yadav, known more for his raw pace.
New Zealand made one change: Jacob Duffy in for Adam Milne. There was no particular reason for it, just rotation of players given the amount of cricket to come.
India 1 Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt.), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Naman Dhir, 7 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 8 Axar Patel, 9 Bhuvneshwar Kumar, 10 Arshdeep Singh, 11 Prince Yadav
New Zealand 1 Finn Allen, 2 Tim Seifert (wk), 3 Daryl Mitchell, 4 Glenn Phillips, 5 Bevon Jacobs, 6 Michael Bracewell, 7 Mitchell Santner (capt), 8 Nathan Smith, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Jacob Duffy, 11 Lockie Ferguson