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It has been nine games for New Zealand since they have won a single game and they knows they need to break the loosing streak quickly otherwise they are on verge of loosing two consecutive series without winning a single game. In last series they have lost the series by 4-0 and now they already lost the series against India by 3-0 with two games to go.

New Zealand batsmen as well as bowlers struggled so far in this series and somehow they need to find their way quickly to get that winning feeling back against an India side that, on current form and confidence, will be backing itself to go unbeaten through the home season of 2010-11.

In last two games New Zealand bowlers failed to dismiss Indian Captain Gautam Gambhir and that is big concern for the visitors as Gambhir manage to get his team home quite comfortably in both games chasing the competitive total. It will be interesting to see how Indian middle order responds if both Kohli and Gambhir dismissed cheaply, which looks unlikely to happen at the moment.

Yusuf Pathan will be also hoping to get some chance in the middle with the bat to prove something to the selectors because he has very few opportunity left with him to impress the selectors to give himself chance to make it into the 2011 World Cup Squad.

The Indian line-up has not exactly missed the dashing Virender Sehwag or the reliable Sachin Tendulkar as the likes of Virat Kohli have stepped in effortlessely against a rather ineffective Kiwi attack.

The Indian bowling has been spearheaded well by senior pacer Zaheer Khan along with the spinners. Young off-spinner R Ashwin has, in fact, managed to make quite an impact but he has to be more economical in the middle overs.

New Zealand will be keen to turn the tide in their favor as soon as possible otherwise a loss here will put them under lot of pressure to save themselves from one of the most embarrassing series loss they could not have imagined.

Watch out for

R.Taylor: We can call him local hero although he will be playing against India, but in IPL whenever he walks into bat crowd cheered him a lot. So he would love to perform at his IPL home venue. So far his performance with the bat is unnoticeable so we might expect some firework from his side.

Virat Kohli: A man of 2010, he is in superb form and would love to play at one of his favorite venue. So far he has scored nearly 1000 runs in ODI this year and would love to carry the form with World Cup is just few months away.

Pitch and conditions

The pitch at M.Channaswamy Stadium, Bangalore will provide help for both spinners as well as fast bowler. Team winning the toss is likely to bat first and put runs on the board.

Team News

In last game we have seen Ravinder Jadeja played in place of absent Raina but for this game we will witness two-three changes in the squad. Saurabh Tiwary, Parthiv Patel and Praveen Kumar are likely to get a game at M.Channaswamy Stadium, Bangalore.

On the other hand New Zealand will hope that their regular wicket keeper batsmen is fully fit and able to keep the wicket so that they can play extra bowler in place of G.Hopkins.

Likely Playing XI for both teams (Match is schedule to begin at 14:30 PM India Time)

India: M Vijay, Gautam Gambhir (Captain), Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Saurabh Tiwary, Parthiv Patel (WK), R Ashwin, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel.

New Zealand: Brendon McCullum (WK), Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, Scott Styris, Kane Williamson, James Franklin, Daniel Vettori (Captain), Nathan McCullum, Tim Southee, Kyle Mills, Andy McKay.