Associate Sport Minister Chris Bishop and Indian Rugby Football Union President Rahul Bose exchange an All Blacks Sevens jersey during a function at the High Commission in Delhi in March, marking the announcement of an NZ Government-supported rugby sevens coach exchange programme.
Sport will sit at the heart of Narendra Modi’s first official visit to New Zealand, with Wellington and Delhi using cricket diplomacy, high-performance science and commercial deals to drive a wider reset in the India–NZ relationship.
Modi sees New Zealand not only as a highly competitive and friendly cricketing nation,but as a high-performance partner whose systems and innovation can help deliver on India’s domestic and global sporting ambitions.
“Modi has a huge ambition to use sport as a means for social change in India, for impacting people and building community resilience and cohesion, but also national pride,” said Peter Miskimmin, head of sport diplomacy at Sport New Zealand.
Sport as soft power – and hard strategy
That ambition is increasingly being expressed through major events. India has secured hosting rights for the next Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and is positioning for a bid for the 2036 Olympic Games.
Against that backdrop, New Zealand has emerged as a reference point for how a small country can systemically outperform on the world stage.
“They look around the world at countries that they see are enormously successful, and they look at New Zealand, they go, ‘Gee, you know, for five million people, you know, the last games you had 20 medals, 10 of them were gold. So, how do you do that?’” Miskimmin explained.
Modi has a huge ambition to use sport as a means for social change in India, for impacting people and building community resilience and cohesion, but also national pride.
“And that’s really the link that they’re looking for – our world-class performance expertise that they’re looking to collaborate on.”
For New Zealand, the opportunity runs well beyond cricket. Officials see scope for collaboration on events, facilities, training environments, commercial models and investment – effectively turning sport into a new pillar of the wider India–NZ partnership.
Centenary festival to follow Modi visit
The immediate platform will be a two-week celebration of 100 years of India-New Zealand sporting links, to be held in November, due to be formally announced by Cabinet ministers shortly after the Modi visit.
The centenary traces back to when an Indian Armed Forces hockey side first played a New Zealand defence side on June 26, 100 years ago.
The Indian men’s cricket team will tour from the end of October through to the beginning of December, with key fixtures falling within the centenary period:
• Two test matches,
• A series of one-day internationals,
• A run of T20s.
They will be played in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch.
Cricket will sit alongside a broader sporting programme. The Indian men’s football team will tour, bowls is already confirmed, and officials are working to add hockey, basketball and other sports.
Organisers are clear that this is not just a nostalgia exercise. The sporting schedule will be wrapped inside a wider economic and diplomatic push:
• A business summit with a strong sport and innovation stream,
• A Halberg-style gala dinner with high-profile guests,
• Coordinated diaspora engagement in Auckland and beyond.
“There’ll be a business summit that goes with that, a big celebratory gala dinner, and lots of engagement with the diaspora,” Miskimmin says.
Dates and full details are being held back until the ministerial announcement.
Business summit and Goldmine innovation showcase
At the core of the November programme will be a business and sport innovation forum, effectively a hybrid business summit and sports tech conference.
The summit is being pulled together by a coalition including Auckland Unlimited, the Auckland Business Chamber, the India New Zealand Business Council and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, reflecting the layers of interest across government, business and the Indian diaspora.
The format is still being finalised, but planners are working on a full-day forum followed by a gala dinner, with a possible extra half-day.
The content will be explicitly cross-sector: “It will be a business and sport innovation forum, so it’ll have a workstream around sport and innovation, but it’ll also have the education and other areas of our trade,” Miskimmin said.
The Modi visit is also likely to feature a tightly curated showcase of high-performance sport technology, built around Sport New Zealand’s “Goldmine” programme – a public–private partnership that draws in philanthropic funding, including from Sir Stephen Tindall, to solve performance problems for elite athletes.
Examples range from kayak power measurement systems – the kind of technology used to support athletes like Olympic rowing great Lisa Carrington – to advanced throwing and shot put analytics.
“We’ve got technology that can measure the power going through the blade,” said Miskimmin by way of example. “We’ll be demonstrating to Prime Minister Modi that not only do we have great athletes, but we also have some really good innovation science that sits behind it.”
Sevens coaches to school links
Beneath the big-ticket events is a growing web of people-to-people links, particularly in rugby, education and sport development.
At India’s request, New Zealand has already sent three top sevens coaches to run a course in India, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) and Rugby India. The programme has been well received and is set to expand.
“We are likely to send under 20 men’s and women’s teams there later on in the year... again as a result of direct requests from them to improve their rugby,” said Miskimmin.
A March delegation to India, led by then-Sports Minister Chris Bishop and which included business figures and technology representation from Ben Taylor of Animation Research – has deepened links further.
The delegation met with major Indian companies like Tata and Reliance and held conversations with various national sporting bodies.
One immediate outcome has been in education. The Wellington Phoenix’s charter sports school has since signed an agreement with a state public school in Delhi, effectively exporting a New Zealand model of integrated sport and schooling.
“That came as a result of that delegation,” Miskimmin confirmed.
These initiatives are complemented by a planned government–sport action plan under an existing memorandum of understanding, which is expected to be progressed further around the Modi visit and will formalise collaboration across high performance, innovation and technology.
Chasing the big stage: Ahmedabad, 2036 and beyond
For New Zealand, India’s vast scale and commercial weight in sport translate into both learning opportunities and potential investment opportunities.
On the performance side, New Zealand officials are keen to tap into India’s dominance in particular sports while offering Kiwi expertise in areas where New Zealand excels. “It is an opportunity of focus on sports that they’re really good at that we’re not. A good example would be badminton, where they’re world-class, so we can access that.”
On the commercial side, attention is firmly on India’s league structures, broadcasting reach and fandom models, particularly the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“The other one is obviously the opportunity of their commercialisation of sport through the IPL - all the fandom and all the broadcasting that they do. Again, lots of interest and learnings for us.”
There is also a clear investment angle. New Zealand agencies are positioning for major Indian corporates – from conglomerates such as Tata and Reliance down to media and tech players – to invest directly in New Zealand ‘s sporting content and infrastructure.
“Many of those big companies we talked about are investing in sporting content around the world. Why not New Zealand?”
As Modi’s advance teams move in, hotels lock down floors and security ramps up, New Zealand officials concede the visit will feel like a spectacle.
But behind the circus is a carefully constructed agenda: to use sport as a strategic bridge between India and New Zealand – marrying soft power, elite performance and serious money in a deeper bilateral partnership.
The New Zealand Performance Academy Aotearoa (NZPAA) and Delhi Public School R.K. Puram (DPS R.K. Puram), one of India’s leading schools, have signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will create new educational, sporting and cultural opportunities for students and staff in both New Zealand and India.
It follows the cultural visit to India in March when a delegation of New Zealand sports officials, including NZPAA director David Dome, visited DPS R.K. Puram.
Dome met with DPS R.K. Puram principal Anil Kumar and discussed areas of collaboration that matched each school’s skill sets.
“NZPAA’s relationship with the Wellington Phoenix Football Academy gives this partnership a point of difference,” Dome said.
“India is one of the fastest-growing football markets in the world and this partnership creates an exciting two-way pathway for talented young players to experience different cultures, coaching philosophies and educational environments while building friendships and networks that will last a lifetime.”
The NZPPAA is an innovative senior secondary school that integrates academic excellence with high-performance sport and leadership development. Through personalised education and international partnerships, NZPAA prepares students for success in tertiary education, elite sport and future careers.
Delhi Public School R.K. Puram is one of India’s most respected and highest-performing schools, recognised internationally for excellence in academic achievement, particularly in mathematics and science, alongside its commitment to holistic education, leadership, sport and global citizenship.
Sporting growth
Narendra Modi has singled out sports as an essential aspect of India’s journey towards becoming a developed nation.
In 2025, he unveiled a National Sports Policy to ensure a sporting growth that covers the farthest school to the elite Olympics.
In his Independence Day speech the Prime Minister said the country has come a long way from the time when sports was not seen as a viable career option.
“Sports is an essential aspect of development and I am happy that from the time when parents used to scoff at children spending time in sports, we have reached a point where it has changed. Now, parents are happy if children take an interest in sports.
“I consider it a good omen. It fills me with pride to see sports finding a space in Indian families. It is good for India’s future.”
The National Sports Strategy calls for greater accountability of administrators and establishment of processes to “ensure ethical practices, fair play and healthy competition in the sports sector”.
The policy also implemented a revamped funding mechanism, including initiatives such as “Adopt an Athlete”, “Adopt a District”, “Adopt a Venue”, “One Corporate-One Sport”, and “One PSU-One State” wherever feasible.
India’s Olympic performance has been underwhelming, with the 2021 Tokyo Games hauls of seven, including one gold, being its best-ever show to date.
The Prime Minister also reiterated that fitness is an important part of sporting culture and for that, the nation needs to fight obesity by cutting down consumption of oil.
“When I talk of fitness and sports, I want to talk about obesity, which is a huge problem for the country. It is predicted that every third person is expected to be obese in future, we have to reduce consumption of oil to win this war on obesity,” he said.
