IT’S BEEN a while since India won a One-Day International on New Zealand soil – seven years and nine months, to be precise. Not since Rohit Sharma, standing in as captain for Virat Kohli, led his side to a 35-run win in the last of five matches in Wellington on 3 February 2019 (India clinched the series 4-1) have they managed to put it past the home side, though in their tenuous defence is the reality that the teams have only played four completed 50-over matches since. The weight of recent history, therefore, is against Shubman Gill’s side as they approach a rare five-match showdown starting at Auckland’s Eden Park on Wednesday. Like they had in early 2020 on their last full tour of New Zealand, India have begun this all-format face-off too on a positive note by grabbng the T20 International series 3-2 (it was a 5-0 sweep six and a half years back), but they will be hoping the rest of the tour doesn’t mirror the pattern of 2020 when the Kiwis whitewashed them in the three ODIs and the two Tests that followed. Contextually, the T20I showdown held the least import. The next T20 World Cup isn’t until 23 months away – in New Zealand and Australia – and therefore not too much should be read into the outcome, but there is a lot more riding on the results of their other two formats. For both sides, this One-Day series will mark the beginning of the final leg of preparations for the 50- over World Cup, to be staged in southern Africa next October-November. Likewise, the two protagonists will target a bushel of World Test Championship points in the red-ball fixtures as they seek to keep their chances of finishing in the top two and progressing to the final alive.

 

A wealth of breathtaking young Indian batting talent was on show during the 20-over shoot-outs, not least the explosive Abhishek Sharma, the exuberant Vaibhav Sooryavanshi (all too briefly) and the enterprising Tilak Varma. The ODIs, on the other hand, will mark the much-anticipated return of the old guard. One-format internationals Rohit and Kohli, almost certainly on their last tour of this country, will understandably be the cynosure as Gill and head coach Gautam Gambhir seek to narrow the core group from which the World Cup 15 will be picked sometime in the third quarter of 2027. The days when the futures of Rohit and Kohli were needlessly debated before and after every innings have thankfully disappeared. Unless fitness, more than form, dictates otherwise, the two legends will line up in the Africas for one final tilt at the 50- over World Cup crown, which proved heartbreakingly elusive in Ahmedabad in November 2023. Kohli has a winner’s medal (2011) while Rohit, desperately unlucky to miss out on that campaign at home, is still looking for his first 50-over World Cup gold to go with two of those in the T20 version. Not many of India’s batters in the ODI set-up are coming in cold, so to speak. Several of them played for India A in the first of three unofficial Tests against their Kiwi counterparts in a shadow series, and while there wasn’t a great deal of joy for KL Rahul, specifically, he is too experienced a campaigner to allowthat to affect him in his now well-entrenched role as the wicketkeeper-batter. How India’s bowlers go will be watched with great interest. At home in the whiteball games against West Indies and in the T20 series here, they have been under the pump. Whether they adapt quickly to the demands of the longer limited-overs iteration is the burning question.