NEW DELHI: India captain Rohit Sharma won the toss and chose to bowl against New Zealand at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association Stadium in Dharamsala on Sunday.
India brought in Mohammed Shami and Suryakumar Yadav in the place of injured Hardik Pandya and Shardul Thakur.
Pandya had twisted his ankle in the previous win over Bangladesh and did not travel with the team to Dharamsala.
The Kiwis come in unchanged from their previous win over Afghanistan. They have three seamers led by Trent Boult and two spinners.
Regular captain Kane Williamson is sidelined with a fractured thumb.
After winning the toss, Rohit Sharma said, "We'll bowl first. No reason, we were here training yesterday and felt a bit of dew comes in. Looks like a good pitch, we'll back ourselves to chase. Quite important to keep the momentum going, forget what happened in the past. Need to be at it all the time. This is one place everyone wants to come and play, beautiful weather and nice stadium. Hardik isn't available, so does Shardul. We've got Shami and Surya."
After losing the toss, stand-in New Zealand skipper Tom Latham said, "We'd have bowled first as well. Looks a good surface, and we know the dew will come in. The important thing is whatever we do, we need to do well. We need to keep the momentum going. We are in a new ground, new conditions so need to adjust to these conditions as quickly as we can. We've got the same team for today - three seamers and two spinners."
New Zealand have an edge over India in World Cup match-ups with a 5-3 advantage and knocked out the much-fancied team in the semi-finals of the last edition in 2019.
Both teams come into the contest unbeaten in their four matches and will now aim to get ahead of each other in the race to the semi-finals.
Former cricketers Ravi Shastri and Simon Doull reckoned in their pitch report that it will be on the slower side, but still a good batting pitch, Even though the dew will be a factor, both the captains should be looking to bat first.
India XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul(w), Suryakumar Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj
New Zealand XI: Devon Conway, Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, Tom Latham(w/c), Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner, Matt Henry, Lockie Ferguson, Trent Boult
