New Zealand batter Nick Kelly has expressed hope that Indian stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma fail to score runs in the second ODI at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot on Wednesday, January 14. India currently lead the three-match ODI series 1-0 after securing a four-wicket win in the opening game at Vadodara on Sunday, January 11.

India briefly lost momentum in the chase after Kohli was dismissed for a well-made 93. However, wicketkeeper-batter KL Rahul held his nerve and guided the hosts home with a calm and composed unbeaten 29 off 21 balls, sealing the victory in the penultimate over. With the series advantage in their favour, India will look to build on their strong start, while New Zealand will be eager to bounce back and level the series in Rajkot.

"Any time you get to come up against some of the world's best, it's obviously very exciting from a cricket fan's point of view. But I think the boys who are out there will be very excited. And hopefully they don't score too many runs," Kelly told reporters as quoted by NDTV Sports.

Kelly is hoping to deliver a strong performance after a closely contested first ODI, which India won by four wickets. Meanwhile, India have been forced into a change to their squad after Washington Sundar sustained an injury in the Vadodara game. As a result, Ayush Badoni has been added to the squad for the second and third ODIs.

"Yeah, obviously very exciting. The game a couple of days ago was very, very close. So it was good to get here today. And, you know, beautiful practice wicket. So hopefully another cracking game tomorrow,” said Kelly.

"Obviously, it was a cracking game. You know, at the end there it got very, very tight. Hopefully, you know, we've had a lot of chats over the last 24 to 48 hours. So hopefully tomorrow we can go out there and get the win and make it 1-1," he added.

India Squad:

Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill (c), Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Ravindra Jadeja, KL Rahul (wk), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Arshdeep Singh, Ayush Badoni, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Dhruv Jurel.

Devon Conway, Henry Nicholls, Will Young, Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Mitchell Hay (wk), Michael Bracewell (c), Zakary Foulkes, Kristian Clarke, Kyle Jamieson, Adithya Ashok, Jayden Lennox, Nick Kelly, Josh Clarkson, Michael Rae.