Indian team arrives in New Zealand for ODI series

NAPIER: The Indian cricket team arrived here today for the five-match ODI series against New Zealand starting January 19. " Napier welcomes us with pleasant weather and great scenery. Cant wait to get onto the field," tweeted Virat Kohli after arriving in the city.

The Indians took a connecting flight from Auckland for Napier after arriving in the country from Mumbai. The series will start here on Sunday and conclude on January 31 in Wellington with the other three games set to be held at Hamilton (January 22 and 28) and Auckland (January 25).

The Test series would be held after that. The opening match is scheduled from February 6-10 (Auckland) followed by the second and final match in Wellington (February 14-18).

The tourists will play a two-day warm-up game on February 2 and 3 at Whangarei ahead of the Tests. Test specialists Cheteshwar Pujara, Zaheer Khan, Murali Vijay and Umesh Yadav will join the squad later.

This is India's ninth visit to New Zealand for a bilateral contest and their first since 2008-09 that they won 1-0.