All-rounder Mark Chapman and spin bowler Todd Astle have been included in New Zealand’s 15-man Twenty20 World Cup squad, while Finn Allen and Colin de Grandhomme have missed out.
There was also no place for veteran batsman Ross Taylor, who played his last T20 last November, in the squad released on Tuesday.
Astle joins fellow legspinner Ish Sodhi and left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner for the Oct. 17-Nov. 14 tournament in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, where spin is expected to be important.
Adam Milne will travel with the Kane Williamson-captained squad as a standby for frontline pacemen Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Kyle Jamieson and Lockie Ferguson.
New Zealand play in Group 2 at the World Cup with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and two qualifiers.
The squad will travel to India for three T20 matches after the World Cup before a two-test series.
A separate squad captained by Tom Latham will head to Bangladesh and Pakistan for white-ball tours in September and October prior to the World Cup to manage player workloads amid taxing COVID-19 restrictions.
"The need to safeguard the wellbeing of our players and support staff is now very real, and we’ve endeavoured to do this by carefully managing their workloads over this winter’s massive playing programme,” said New Zealand Cricket (NZC) boss David White said in a statement.
NZC said Taylor had been selected for the tour of Pakistan but had opted out.
"With the brief nature of the one-week series and the length of quarantine protocols, it was mutually agreed he would remain at home to prepare for the Indian test tour and upcoming home summer," the board said.
New Zealand squad for T20 World Cup and India T20s:
Kane Williamson (captain), Todd Astle, Trent Boult, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Lockie Ferguson, Martin Guptill, Kyle Jamieson, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Santner, Tim Seifert, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
