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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the replacement of Tilak Verma and Washington Sundar for the upcoming T20 series against New Zealand. Shreyas Iyer and Ravi Bishnoi have entered Team India in place of these two injured players.

Tilak is out of the first three matches of the 5-match T20 series. In such a situation, Iyer has been included in the Indian team for the first matches only. Whereas Sundar is out of the entire series. Bishnoi has been selected for all five matches.

Iyer played T20I two years ago

Shreyas Iyer played the last T20I match for Team India in December 2023. After this he was away from the Indian T20 team. There was a lot of uproar after he was not selected in the Asia Cup team. Shreyas has not played any T20 match since the IPL 2025 final. He could not play in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy due to injury.

On the other hand, Ravi Bishnoi was playing consecutive matches for Team India till last year but the explosive comeback of Varun Chakraborty ousted him. Now after a year he has returned to the team. However, there is little hope that he will be able to make a place in the playing XI.

Where are the matches going to be held?

The T20 series between India and New Zealand will start from January 21 in Nagpur. After this, the second match will be played on 23 January in Raipur and the third match will be played on 25 January in Guwahati. The last two matches of the series will be held in Visakhapatnam (January 28) and Thiruvananthapuram (January 31).

India’s updated squad for T20 series against New Zealand: Suryakumar Yadav (captain), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson (wk), Shreyas Iyer (available for first three matches), Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dubey, Axar Patel (vice-captain), Rinku Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakravarthy, Ishan Kishan (wk), Ravi Bishnoi.