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India will start their world twennty20 campaigns on England soil with the warm up game against black caps. The big headache for the T20 World Champion India is to maintain the fitness of their players. The lists of injured players are growing day by day. Zaheer Khan who picked up the injury during IPL is yet to recover and now Virendra Sehwag is struggling with his shoulder. Although team management said that Sehwag injury is not serious and he will recover soon and has been given rest for the game against New Zealand.

Despite of injury to some of the key players Indian captain is confident that his team has ability to defend the 2020 world championship crown. Indian team will play two warm up games one against New Zealand and another against arch-rivals Pakistan on 3^rd of June.

New Zealand team will be hoping to boost their confidence by beating the 2020 world champion India in the warm-up game. More or less their all players are in prime form as we have seen in last few warm up games they have played on England soil.

On the other hand Indian players like to start their tour with a win against New Zealand, so far in three T20I they have never able to beat New Zealand. On their recent tour to New Zealand they have lost both T20 game. However Dhoni is confident that his team will put up a good show against New Zealand.

With Virendra Sehwag out of equation, Yusuf Pathan is likely to open the innings with Gautam Gambhir. Ravinder Jadeja is also likely to be included in the playing XI.

Indian team so far played five 2020 International after 2007 twenty20 world cup and they have manage to win two (one against Australia and one against Sri Lanka) and lost three (two against New Zealand and one against Australia).

It will be interesting to see how Dhoni and his men will approach this game, whatever the outcome of the results they will start the twenty20 world cup campaign as firm favourites to retain the world championship crown.

Pitch & Conditions

The pitch at Lord’s at this time of year is really dry and will help the seamers in first six over but more or less it will be a good batting wicket. Team batting first will eye an score of 180 plus on this wicket.

Team News

Dhoni already declared that injured Zaheer Khan will not take part in two warm up games against New Zealand and Pakistan. Virendra Sehwag too is down with shoulder injury and he may miss the game against New Zealand.

On the other hand New Zealand has no problem with their line-ups and it is expected that they will go with full strength against Indians to test their players against World Champions.

Likely Playing XI for both teams (Match is schedule to begin at 22:00 PM India Time on 1^st Of June)

India Squad: Yusuf Pathan, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (Captain & Wicketkeeper), Ravindra Jadeja, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh.

New Zealand Squad: Brendon McCullum (Wicketkeeper), Jesse Ryder, Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Scott Styris, Jacob Oram, James Franklin, Ian Butler, Daniel Vettori (Captain), Kyle Mills, Iain O'Brien.

Stats & Trivia

So far New Zealand have played three Twenty20 games against India and on all three occasions New Zealand came out as winner. Although ICC has not given International status to the warm up games but records are records.