India set to face NZ in 1st warm-up

With only ahandful number of days left for the ICC World Cup 2019 to commence, the 'Man inBlue' will begin the World Cup preparations in their opening warm-up matchagainst New Zealand at the Kennington Oval in London on May 25 scheduled tostart at 10:30 AM local time (3 PM IST).

New Zealandwicket-keeper batsman Tom Latham will miss the two warm-up matches againstIndia and West Indies on May 25 and 28 respectively, due to injury.

However,India is yet to clear the confusion over the number four position. Thewarm-up match at the Kennigton Oval will go beyond experimenting with theirhighly skilled bowling attack, and quite a bit of focus will be on K L Rahuland Vijay Shankar, contending for the number four slot.

The Indian squadincludes Virat Kohli (capt.), Jasprit Bumrah, Yuzvendra Chahal, Sikhar Dhawan,MS Dhoni (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik (wk), BhuvneshwarKumar, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, Mohammed Shami, Vijay Shankar, Rohit Sharma andKuldeep Yadav.

On the other hand, the New Zealand squad includes Kane Williamson (capt), Tom Blundell (wk), Trent Boult, Colin de Grandhomme, Lockie Ferguson, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry, Tom Latham (wk), Colin Munro, Jimmy Neesham, Henry Nicholls, Mitchel Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee and Ross Taylor.

Team Indiawill begin their mega campaign against South Africa in Southampton on June 5.