Buoyed by a convincing victory in the first ODI, Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his blue army will look to continue the dominant form in the second ODI of the five match series here on Thursday.
The match will be extra special for local boy Virat Kohli as the Test skipper will be eager to maintain his recent good form at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.
leading India to victory with a masterful 85 not out, fans will expect Kohli to produce something similar.
With the Men in Blue flying, limited over skipper Dhoni is not expected to shuffle much with the squad.
With Suresh Raina — who missed the first ODI — ruled out of the second ODI as well after failing to recover from a bout of viral fever, Kedar Jadhav is expected to retain his place.
As a part time off-spinner Jadav ended up taking two wickets for just 6 runs in the three overs he bowled. With the bat too he produced two sublime boundaries to support Kohli from the other end to see out the match for India.
Hardik Pandya is another to have made a telling impact in the first ODI. With 3/31 in his debut 50-over match, Pandya — a regular in the T20 format — is slowly but steadily making a name for himself in the squad.
However, all eyes will be on Kohli at his home ground. Despite not being at his best initially in the Test series against Kiwis, Kohli slowly got into the rhythm and scored a magnificent double century in the final Test and captained the side to a 3-0 whitewash and in the process helped the side subsequently reclaim the No 1 spot in the Tests.
With calls to make Kohli skipper of all three formats gathering pace, the Royal Challengers batsman will look to produce another impressive knock.
His ability to not only score big shots, but also to stay there till the end to finish the job makes the Delhi born player the country's biggest asset.
If New Zealand are to end their barren run so far in this tour, they may have to find a way to reduce Kohli's impact in the middle.
Ajinkya Rahane is another in-form batsman for the hosts. After getting an almost run-a-ball 33, Rahane would have been disappointed to not make into a big score. He will expect to maintain the momentum going in the middle.
Manish Pandey and Rohit Sharma would have been disappointed to not make the most of the opportunity in Dharamsala. They would look to get some runs under their belt as the competition in the batting order could become hectic, when the injured players like Shikhar Dhawan and Raina returns.
Meanwhile, the captain himself his on the verge of creating a landmark - another 61 runs, Dhoni will complete 9000 ODI runs.
After pushing himself up the order, the wicket-keeper batsman got a good start but was run out for 21. He would be eager to reach the 9000 run mark at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium.
As for the bowling is concerned, apart from Pandya, Umesh Yadav also had a decent outing, bagging two wickets for 31 runs.
In the spin department, another Delhi-born player Amit Mishra led the line well in the opener, scalping three New Zealand batsmen for 49 runs.
Even though Axar Patel and Jasprit Bumrah ended wicket-less, they still did their job admirably to make a strong case to retain their places in the starting XI.
On the other hand, the problems are aplenty as far as the Black Caps are concerned. With the possible exception of their opener Tom latham, the order has disappointed so far. The likes of Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor and the ever-reliable Kane Williamson have found the going tough and have failed to live up to the expectations.
If New Zealand are to produce a strong challenge, they all need to step up against the confident Indian line-up.
In the bowling department, Pacer Trent Boult will likely be included in the squad to support Tim Southee to trouble the Indian batting line-up
Spin twins Mitchell Santner and lsh Sodhi have been brought down to earth after World T20 high as they found how hard it is to bowl on flat Dharamsala track. But on the Feroz Shah Kotla wicket both spinners will like to make their case stronger as the conditions looks to assist the spinners.
Squad
India: MS Dhoni (captain and wk), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Manish Pandey, Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Amit Mishra, Axar Patel, Umesh Yadav, Dhawal Kulkarni, Jayant Yadav, Mandeep Singh
New Zealand: Kane Williamson (captain), Tom latham, Martin Guptill, Ross Taylor, luke Ronchi (wk), Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Jimmy Neesham, Corey Anderson, Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Anton Devcich, Doug Bracewell, Matt Henry, BJ Watling.