Auqib Nabi will stick to the methods that took him from domestic cricket to the India side as he prepares for the fourth ODI against New Zealand at Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui on Friday. The Jammu and Kashmir pacer said pace is a help, but trusting his skills matters just as much, and he plans to bowl the way he has bowled all along. India lead the five-match series 2-0 after the third ODI in Hamilton was washed out, and Nabi has a chance to build on a start that has already brought him two wickets in the series.
Auqib Nabi on seam over swing
Auqib Nabi spoke at a press conference before the fourth ODI, and his message was plain. “Having pace is good but I back my skills. I will do what I have been doing and what has brought me here. I will just do what I did in domestic cricket, and that will help me here too,” he said. It is his first time playing in New Zealand, and he said the conditions ask for a change of method rather than a change of bowler. “It is my first time in New Zealand. You need to rely more on seam here. Use scrambled seam because swing can be dealt with,” he said.
Discipline was the other point Auqib Nabi made. “You need to bowl well no matter how good or flat the pitches are. When wickets are good, you need to bowl with discipline because you can go for runs,” he said. He added that the bowling group keeps talking through plans for drop-in pitches, working with Arshdeep Singh and Anshul Kamboj on how to bowl on them. The weather in New Zealand has felt close to the weather back home in Jammu and Kashmir, he said, even if the opposition and the level of cricket are different.
Auqib Nabi and the road from Ranji Trophy
Auqib Nabi’s call-up followed a long run of wickets in domestic cricket. He took 104 wickets across the 2024-25 and 2025-26 Ranji Trophy seasons, and his 2025-26 season brought 60 wickets in 17 innings at an average of 12.65. Those wickets helped Jammu and Kashmir win their first Ranji Trophy title, and Nabi was named player of the tournament. He is known back home as the Baramulla Express, a name that comes from his pace and his home town.
Auqib Nabi’s first games for India were hard. He made his international debut against West Indies in Guwahati on September 30, and he went for 84 runs in 8.5 overs without a wicket as West Indies made 405 for 7. He was left out after that, but the selectors kept him in mind for New Zealand. He had already shown what he could do in the country, taking six wickets for India A against New Zealand A in Lincoln, with 3 for 69 and 3 for 28, and making 38 in India A’s second innings.
What the fourth ODI holds for Nabi
Auqib Nabi was first picked only for the fourth and fifth ODIs, then added to the squad for the whole series when Prasidh Krishna was ruled out with a left hamstring injury. In the first ODI he returned 0 for 33 as India won by five wickets, and in the second he removed openers Will Young and Tim Seifert as India won by four runs. The third ODI was washed out. Ajinkya Rahane, speaking on SonyLIV before the series, had backed Nabi to make the most of New Zealand’s swing and seam movement, calling him a seam bowler who bowls in good areas.
The fourth ODI is at Bay Oval on Friday, November 13, with the fifth to follow at the same ground on Sunday, November 15. India cannot lose the series after the Hamilton washout, and New Zealand need both games to draw it. Auqib Nabi will bowl on a drop-in pitch in Mount Maunganui, the kind of surface he has spent the week talking through with Arshdeep and Anshul. He said he will trust the method that brought him here, and the fourth ODI is his next chance to show it works away from home.
He had expected a Test call-up before his white-ball debut, and he has said the white-ball games will still help him when the longer format comes. For now his task is plain: bowl with discipline, use the seam, and keep doing what worked in domestic cricket. The fourth ODI gives Auqib Nabi another game to do it in, against a New Zealand side that must win to keep the series alive.