Ravi Bishnoi is out and Bhuvneshwar Kumar is back, as India pick 16 for five T20Is in New Zealand
The squad for the tour starting in Christchurch on October 22 is nearly the one playing West Indies, and the recall of a 36-year-old swing bowler creates a clash with the Hong Kong Sixes.
Oct 7, 2026
India named their squad for New Zealand on Tuesday, the day the home T20I series against West Indies started in Lucknow, and it is close to the same group. Fourteen of the 16 players are already in the West Indies squad. Ravi Bishnoi drops out, Varun Chakaravarthy is back from injury, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar is in an India T20I squad for the first time in almost four years.
Shreyas Iyer stays captain with Tilak Varma as his deputy. The five games start in Christchurch on October 22 and 24, then move to Wellington on October 27, Auckland on October 30 and Hamilton on November 1.
Bhuvneshwar goes back to where he left off
His last T20I was against New Zealand in Napier on 22 November 2022. He is 36 now, and he has earned the recall in the IPL: Royal Challengers Bengaluru won the title in 2025 and again in 2026, and this year he took 28 wickets, one fewer than Purple Cap winner Kagiso Rabada. A New Zealand spring should give a swing bowler something to work with, and that looks like the point of picking him.
There is a catch. Cricket Hong Kong, China named him on 5 October as captain of India’s seven-man squad for the Hong Kong Sixes, which runs from 30 October to 1 November. Those are the dates of the fourth and fifth T20Is. He cannot be in Auckland and Hong Kong on the same day, and if he stays with the T20I squad the Sixes side will need a new captain.
Varun in, Bishnoi out
Varun picked up a side strain in September that ruled him out of the Asian Games, and he was not in the West Indies squad. He is back now, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel keep their places, and that left no room for Bishnoi, the legspinner who was picked for West Indies. Washington Sundar is not in the squad either. He left the West Indies series to play Ranji Trophy cricket for Tamil Nadu, and Naman Dhir, who took 3 for 31 on debut in Lucknow, keeps the place he got as his replacement.
Jasprit Bumrah, rested for West Indies, is still being rested, so the pace bowling is Arshdeep Singh, Bhuvneshwar, Mayank Yadav and Prince Yadav, with Nitish Kumar Reddy and Shivam Dube as seam-bowling all-rounders.
Sooryavanshi keeps his place
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, 15, is in again. He made his T20I debut against England in July as the youngest Indian to play international cricket, and he was player of the series in Zimbabwe with 151 runs in three games. Abhishek Sharma and Sanju Samson opened in Lucknow, though, and Ishan Kishan is there as the second keeper, so Sooryavanshi may have to wait for a game in New Zealand too.
Jurel leads India A
India A play three multi-day games against New Zealand A at the same time: in Lincoln from October 24, in Christchurch from October 31 and in Lincoln again from November 7. Dhruv Jurel is captain and keeper. KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal are in that squad, and Rishabh Pant is picked subject to fitness. The ODI and Test squads for the tour will be named later.
India’s last T20I tour of New Zealand, in November 2022, was won 1-0 after one game was washed out and the Napier match was tied on DLS. On their last five-match tour there, in 2020, they won all five.