BENGALURU: India will look to continue an unprecedented run of Test success on home soil when they face an injury-hit New Zealand in the opener of a three-match series beginning on Wednesday.

Since losing 2-1 to a touring England side in 2012, India have won 18 consecutive series at home, with only four defeats and seven draws in 53 tests.

Rohit Sharma’s side head into the series on the back of a 2-0 sweep against Bangladesh and the captain said he was looking forward to the challenge.

“For us, each team brings different challenges,” Sharma told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve played a lot of cricket against New Zealand, we know their players as well as their strengths and weaknesses.”

“But I’ve said this many times, what’s important for us is that what we do better in this series than we did in the last. We’ll try not to focus too much on the opposition. We’ll try to focus more on ourselves.”

The Bengaluru game, which is followed by matches in Pune and Mumbai, faces the prospect of frustrating weather interruptions with rain predicted throughout the week.

The Black Caps, who began their Asian tour with a washout against Afghanistan in Greater Noida, face India on the back of a 2-0 defeat in Sri Lanka, with Tim Southee handing over the captaincy to Tom Latham after the embarrassing loss.

The tourists will be without batsman Kane Williamson in Bengaluru after the former skipper opted out of the opener due to a groin injury, while paceman Ben Sears was ruled out of the series with a knee injury and replaced by Jacob Duffy.

“Every game that we come out to play, we want to win,” Latham said. “The World Test Championship has produced cricket where teams are looking for results in terms of where they sit on the ladder.

“We’ll certainly be no different. We’ll be looking to win as much as we can. The situation will dictate the way we play and we’re going to try to win.”

Latham said he expected pace bowlers to play a crucial role given the weather conditions.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting the weather that we’ve had over the last couple of days since arriving here. Looking at the forecast, it obviously ... looks similar to what we’ve got today,” he noted.

“Obviously the wicket being under the covers for a longer duration and it not necessarily being as hot as what we would usually expect here, I guess that potentially brings the fast bowlers into play.

“We had a look at the previous game that was played here a month ago (in the domestic league) and I think the seamers took a lot of wickets. Again, it’s hard to say, because we haven’t really had a look at the wicket in terms of a team we play.”

Meanwhile, Indian pace bowler Mohammed Shami sustained a knee problem while building up fitness after heel surgery and the team is unsure if he can return in time for next month’s tour of Australia, Sharma said.

Shami has not played for India since the 50-overs World Cup final against Australia last year and was close to full fitness before being ruled out of the New Zealand series.

“To be honest, right now it’s pretty difficult for us to take a call on him. Whether he would be fit for this series or the Australia series,” Sharma said. “He recently had a setback. He had a swelling in his knee, which was quite unusual... We’re keeping our fingers crossed.”

“We want him to be 100 per cent fit more than anything else. We don’t want to bring an undercooked Shami to Australia. That’s not going to be the right decision for us.”

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2024