India vs New Zealand 5th T20I, Live Cricket Score: Will Sanju Samson return to form vs NZ in Thiruvananthapuram
India vs New Zealand 5th T20 Live Cricket Score Updates: Having already sealed the five-match T20I series against New Zealand in the first three games itself, Suryakumar Yadav’s India will look to sign off on a high from their last official series, by winning today’s game before the T20 World Cup begins in earnest next week
Story continues below this ad
There will be plenty of eyeballs on Sanju Samson, who could not deliver in the previous game, and Ishan Kishan, who was missing from the last T20I due to a niggle.
India vs New Zealand 5th T20I Live Cricket Streaming Online: Watch Here
India squad: Suryakumar Yadav (c), Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson, Shreyas Iyer, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Rinku Singh, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ishan Kishan, Ravi Bishnoi.
New Zealand squad: Mitchell Santner (c), Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Jacob Duffy, Zak Foulkes, Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson, Bevon Jacobs, Daryl Mitchell, James Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Tim Robinson, Ish Sodhi, Kristian Clarke
Scroll down for all the latest updates from the Greenfield International Stadium, Thiruvananthapuram
Live Updates
One wait ends, another begins: Sanju Samson in spotlight on his homecoming
Sanju Samson of India plays a shot during the 4th T20I match between India and New Zealand at Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam, India, on January 28, 2026. (CREIMAS for BCCI)
Sanju’s emergence is an outlier story in the capital city. Thiruvananthapuram is not a city that lends itself to the passionate pursuit of sports. Rather, it is wedded to academics, the weight of textbooks hunches young shoulders more than sporting kits; the race for a government job throbs in the city. The sprawling century-old secretariat building, with its unflinching clock tower and multi-pane windows, stands as the symbol of the city’s middle-class aspirations. It’s a city where kingdoms and dynasties rise and fall, but people move on unsympathetically. But he has made them shed tears and made them laugh.
READ MORE from Sandip G