Shreyas Iyer leads a remade India at Bay Oval with Kushagra and Thakur in line for debuts

India have handed Shreyas Iyer the one-day captaincy and called up three fresh faces for the fourth ODI against New Zealand at Bay Oval, where a single win would settle the series

Iyer takes over from Shubman Gill, who has left the one-day group for the Test camp in Wellington along with KL Rahul and Anshul Kamboj. Tilak Varma, Kumar Kushagra and Yash Thakur have been added for the last two matches of the tour's white-ball leg.

India lead the five-match series 2-0, having won the first two games on the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method before the third was washed out in Hamilton without a ball bowled. Mitchell Santner's side must now win both remaining matches to share the series.

The fourth ODI begins at Bay Oval on Friday, with the fifth at the same ground on Sunday.

Iyer's first match in charge

Iyer, already India's T20I captain, becomes the country's 29th men's ODI captain. He was named vice-captain for the series and moves up with Gill released.

Ishan Kishan steps in as his deputy and takes the gloves in Rahul's place. Kishan has played 32 ODIs for 1,107 runs at an average of 42.57 and a strike rate of 107.05, a tally that includes a double-century.

With Gill gone, Kishan is the likeliest candidate to open alongside Rohit Sharma, leaving Virat Kohli at three.

Three released for the Test camp

Gill captained India in the first three ODIs and will lead the side in the Tests. Rahul, his Test vice-captain and opening partner, and the seamer Kamboj were picked for the one-day leg only as far as Hamilton.

All three have travelled to Wellington, where the first Test starts on 19 November at the Basin Reserve. The second begins at Hagley Oval in Christchurch on 27 November.

Varma recalled, two uncapped names added

Varma returns to a format he has barely played. The left-hander has appeared in five ODIs between 2023 and 2025, the last of them against South Africa in December 2025, and has built his international reputation as a T20 finisher.

Kushagra, a wicketkeeper-batter, comes in as Kishan's understudy on a first senior call-up. He has made 1,387 runs at 51.37 in 40 List A matches, with two centuries.

Thakur, also uncapped in the format, replaces Kamboj in the seam group. The right-armer took 19 wickets in nine matches at the Vijay Hazare Trophy in 2025-26, including a match-winning spell in the final, and has 97 List A wickets from 60 games.

Where the new men fit

Varma is the obvious replacement for Rahul in the middle order and is expected to bat at five or six, a selection that would keep Ruturaj Gaikwad out of the side with the top three settled.

Thakur's path is narrower. Mohammed Siraj remains ahead of him in the pecking order, though India have two matches in three days and have rotated their seamers throughout a tour broken up by weather.

Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Naman Dhir, Gurnoor Brar and Auqib Nabi make up the rest of the 15.

New Zealand reshuffle too

Santner's squad has turned over just as heavily. Several of the players who featured in the first three matches have moved to New Zealand's own Test preparation, and a second-string group has been assembled for Tauranga.

Matt Henry has been cleared for the last two games after missing the first three, while Finn Allen, Lockie Ferguson, Mitchell Hay and the uncapped Brett Randell were named for this match and the next.

India hold the long record between the sides, with 65 wins to New Zealand's 52 from 126 meetings, one of them tied and eight ending without a result.

India can take the series with a win on Friday, having not yet been beaten in a completed match on this tour.