New Zealand announce the ODI squad for England series

The Trans-Tasman T20I tri-series was done and dusted today. The Australian team emerged victorious beating New Zealand in the finals by 19 runs (DLS Method). While the Kangaroos will fly to South Africa for their upcoming assignment, the English team will stay back in the Kiwi nation. After an exhilarating tour down under, England will play a full-fledged series against New Zealand in their own backyard.

To start off with things, Eoin Morgan led side will be facing the hosts in a 5-match ODI series which will kick off from Sunday. The tour will stretch further until April where the two teams will also be seen playing in a 2-match Test series. Players from both the teams will then fly to India to play the Indian Premier League (IPL)

Squad picked for two ODIs

Just four days ahead of the ODI series, the New Zealand Cricket Board has announced an extended 14-man squad. They rank fourth in the ICC ODI Ranking while the Brits take the third position. Hence, this series should be an interesting one in terms of the rankings as well. The Blackcaps have added the third spin option to an otherwise unchanged squad from the one that faced Pakistan last month.

Ish Sodhi will be part of the squad and he comes into the side at the back of some good performances. Also, the fact that both Mitchell Santner and Todd Astle have missed games through injury recently could be a factor that affected this decision. Selector Gavin Larsen said the ODI team had been settled so far this summer.

“Both Mitchell and Todd have had injury concerns recently, so having Ish travel with us gives further options in the spin department,” said Larsen. “Having won the previous eight matches, we’ve been able to keep good consistency in the selection with our ODI squad. We still have a number of guys pushing their case in domestic cricket and that’s pleasing, but this is the squad for the first two matches of the series,” he added.

New Zealand ODI squad:

Kane Williamson (c), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Lockie Ferguson, Colin de Grandhomme, Martin Guptill, Matt Henry,  Tom Latham, Colin Munro, Henry Nicholls, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Ross Taylor.

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