Breaking! India's T20I squad for three-match series against Afghanistan announced

India’s squad for the T20I series against Afghanistan has been announced. Before the T20 World Cup 2024, this is the last series for both teams. Even though the Men In Blue will play a five-match Test series against England at home, the Afghans will play next directly in the T20 World Cup. After this series, players from both teams will play in the IPL 2024.

However, recently, some Afghan players were barred from playing in the T20 leagues as they failed to sign the central contract from their cricket board. Meanwhile, both teams will play against each other on January 11, 14, and 17. Talking about the Indian team, the likes of Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav continue to be ruled out of the game. While the former has been injured since the ODI World Cup 2023, Yadav got injured in the third T20I against South Africa

On the other hand, Ruturaj Gaikwad injured his finger during the ODI series against the Proteas. Meanwhile, as expected, the likes of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli have made their comebacks in the team. They last played a T20I in the semifinal of the T20 World Cup 2022 against England. They were rested for a year from the shortest format of the game.

India's squad

Rohit Sharma (C), S Gill, Y Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, W Sundar, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar

Afghanistan squad

Ibrahim Zadran (capt), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ikram Alikhil (wk), Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Karim Janat, Azmaullah Omarzai, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazal Haq Farooqi, Fareed Ahmad, Naveen-ul-Haq, Noor Ahmad, Mohammad Saleem, Qais Ahmad, Gulbadin Naib and Rashid Khan.