Nitish Reddy or Ayush Badoni? Who will get a chance in place of Washington Sundar in Rajkot ODI?

The three-match ODI series being played between India and New Zealand has now reached Rajkot, Gujarat, where the second match of the series will be played on Wednesday, January 14. The first ODI was played in Vadodara, in which New Zealand had to face defeat in an ODI after nine consecutive matches. This match will start at 1:30 pm Indian time, while the toss will take place at 1 pm.

New Zealand’s challenge to India

Despite losing the toss in the first match, New Zealand gave a tough challenge to India till the last over. The Kiwi team believes that if they were successful in adding 15-20 more runs, then they could have surprised the full strength Indian team even with young players. At the same time, the Indian camp realizes that they won even without giving their best performance. The bowlers restricted New Zealand to within 300 runs, but after the dismissal of Virat Kohli, the struggle in batting was clearly visible.

Team India is confident that if they come even close to the high level of their game, they can win the series in Rajkot regardless of the toss. In such a situation, the team management can also decide to experiment in the third and last ODI.

Rajkot’s new Niranjan Shah Stadium has hosted four ODI matches so far, but not a single successful run chase has been seen here. Till now the mantra of victory has been to score more than 350 runs while batting first.

In this series, Virat Kohli for India and Daryl Mitchell for New Zealand have proved to be the most reliable batsmen. In the first ODI, both came very close to a century. There is relatively less pressure on Kohli, due to which he is able to play freely, whereas Mitchell has to handle the entire responsibility of batting for the Kiwi team.

Big question before the Indian team

The big question before the Indian team is who should be given a chance in place of injured Washington Sundar. Ayush Badoni has been included in the team because of his effective part-time bowling, but Nitish Kumar Reddy is already present. Apart from this, Dhruv Jurel is also an option. Arshdeep Singh can replace Prasidh Krishna in fast bowling.

For New Zealand, Henry Nicholls has proved himself in the opening, due to which wicketkeeper Mitchell Hay is getting a chance in the middle order. Leg spinner Aditya Ashok had trouble in the first match, but the team can give him another opportunity.

Talking about weather, the situation in Rajkot will be similar to Vadodara. Light dew is possible, but teams are now used to it. In such a situation, the importance of the toss will be slightly less, although making a big score in the first innings is still considered very important.