NEW DELHI: New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner won the toss and elected to bat against India in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 final at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday.
In a setback for New Zealand, star pacer Matt Henry has been ruled out of the title clash due to a shoulder injury sustained while fielding in the semifinal against South Africa at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore.
Nathan Smith has been named as his replacement in the playing XI.
Meanwhile, Rohit Sharma-led India have stuck to their winning combination, fielding an unchanged XI for the final.
“We’re going to have a bat first. Looks like a pretty good wicket, similar to the one we played India here a week ago. Want to get runs on the board and see what happens. Obviously expected a few blue shirts, great atmosphere, great ground,” Santner said.
“Going to be slightly different from what we got in Pakistan. We saw how India played and what they got out of it. Hope it slows down a bit later. Different guys have stepped up at different times. You want guys firing from the start and we have done that, as have India. Unfortunately Matt Henry has been ruled out, we’ve got Nathan Smith coming in,” he said.
“We’ve been here enough, batted first and bowled first, don’t really mind batting second. It hasn’t changed much, we’ve chased and won as well. It does give you a lot of confidence, takes the toss away from the game. At the end of the day, what matters is how well you want to play. That’s what we’ve spoken about in the dressing room, not to worry about the toss and to just play well, that’s what we’ve done and we have to do today as well. New Zealand have been a very good team over the past so many years, they tend to play good cricket in ICC tournaments. The challenge for us is to play well against them now. Same team for us,” India skipper Rohit said.
India booked their place in the summit clash after defeating Australia, while New Zealand outclassed South Africa to reach the final.
Interestingly, both teams were part of Group A in the tournament and had already faced off in the group stage.
India, the only unbeaten side in the competition, had secured a convincing 44-run victory over New Zealand in that encounter.
PLAYING XIS:
INDIA:
Rohit Sharma (c), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Varun Chakaravarthy
NEW ZEALAND:
Will Young, Rachin Ravindra, Kane Williamson, Tom Latham (wk), Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner (c), Kyle Jamieson, William O’Rourke, Nathan Smith
