Bumrah and Jadeja are in India’s Test squad for New Zealand but not the ODIs, and Iyer will captain the last two
India have named three groups for New Zealand: one for the first three ODIs under Shubman Gill, one for the last two under Shreyas Iyer, and a Test squad that Gill leaves the one-day side early to lead.
Oct 17, 2026
The selectors took their time over this one, and they have ended up naming three squads rather than two. The BCCI released India’s ODI and Test groups for New Zealand on Friday night, and the 50-over side changes shape halfway through the series. Shubman Gill captains the first three ODIs. Shreyas Iyer, his vice-captain, takes over for the last two.
The split follows the calendar. The third ODI is in Hamilton on 10 November and the first Test starts in Wellington nine days later, so four players leave the one-day group after Hamilton: Gill, KL Rahul, Anshul Kamboj and Prasidh Krishna. All four are in the Test squad. Tilak Varma, Auqib Nabi, Yash Thakur and Kumar Kushagra come in for the games in Mount Maunganui on 13 and 15 November, with Ishan Kishan as Iyer’s vice-captain.
Bumrah and Jadeja: Tests only
Jasprit Bumrah is not in either ODI list. He is in the Test squad, and the release gave no reason for leaving him out of the white-ball games. Ravindra Jadeja is in the same position. He was in the squad for the West Indies ODIs and lost his place in the side for the third game, and now he is not in either one-day group, though he keeps his Test spot. That leaves Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav as the frontline spinners for all five ODIs.
Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are in both ODI groups. They no longer play Tests or T20Is, so this is their only cricket on the tour, and with India’s next ODI World Cup less than a year away every 50-over series they play now gets read as a World Cup audition.
The fitness questions that held it up
Two of the three players the selectors were waiting on have made it, with conditions. Prasidh, who hurt his hamstring in Guwahati on 30 September, is named for the first three ODIs subject to fitness clearance. Rishabh Pant is in the Test squad on the same terms, after the side strain that has ruled him out of India A’s first two four-day games in New Zealand.
Harshit Rana is the one who has not. He is in neither squad. Nitish Kumar Reddy, the seam-bowling allrounder India did pick, is in all three groups.
Akash Deep is back in the Test squad.
Kushagra has two hundreds in his last three first-class games. The Jharkhand keeper was already heading to New Zealand as Pant’s replacement for India A, and he now has a maiden ODI call-up waiting at the end of it. Yash Thakur, who made his T20I debut in Zimbabwe in July, joins him for the last two games.
The squads
ODIs 1-3: Shubman Gill (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (vc), KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Naman Dhir, Anshul Kamboj, Gurnoor Brar, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Arshdeep Singh, Ishan Kishan (wk), Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna (subject to fitness), Kuldeep Yadav.
ODIs 4-5: Shreyas Iyer (c), Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Tilak Varma, Ishan Kishan (wk, vc), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Naman Dhir, Auqib Nabi, Gurnoor Brar, Ruturaj Gaikwad, Arshdeep Singh, Kumar Kushagra (wk), Mohammed Siraj, Yash Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav.
Tests: Shubman Gill (c), KL Rahul (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal, Rishabh Pant (wk, subject to fitness), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Anshul Kamboj, Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Sai Sudharsan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj.
Where and when
The ODIs start in Auckland on 4 November, then go to Wellington on 7 November and Hamilton on 10 November before the two games in Mount Maunganui. Each one starts at 7:30am IST. The first Test is in Wellington from 19 November and the second in Christchurch from 27 November, both at 3:30am IST.
Before any of that, Iyer’s T20I side plays West Indies in the series decider at the Chinnaswamy tonight, and the tour itself opens with the first of five T20Is in Christchurch on 22 October.