^^ England not going with their first choice players. Buttler, Bairstow, Ali are out due to rotation policy, new star wicket keeper Ben foakes is out cause of hamstring issue. Jofra is out as well along with Stokes, still English team looks okay but its not their best team. This test series seems practice series to me. England trying their bench strength for the Ashes and match practice to Kiwis for the WTC finals, should be fun anyway.
Yes.. it is more like warmup before the Ashes for England. And for New Zealand also, it is like preparatory matches ahead of the WTC final. Anyway, New Zealand looks very determined. They really want to become the champions of an ICC global tournament, after missing by a whisker in 2019. On the other hand, India as usual have taken this in a very casual way. As far as I know, they haven't arranged any warm up matches against either the county sides, or the England A team. For them, this is just another family vacation.