Afghanistan Face India in Three T20Is in Delhi from Sept 13

The Series in New Delhi

Afghanistan will play India in a three-match Twenty20 International series beginning on September 13, with every game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi. AajTak reports the three matches will be played between September 13 and 17.

The fixtures follow India's tour meetings with Afghanistan earlier in the year. According to AajTak, India beat Afghanistan in both a Test series and a one-day series in June.

The Afghanistan Squad

Dainik Bhaskar lists an Afghanistan squad of 15 led by Ibrahim Zadran as captain, with Rahmanullah Gurbaz as wicketkeeper. The rest of the group is Sediqullah Atal, Darwish Rasooli, Azmatullah Omarzai, Gulbadin Naib, Noor Rahman, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Nangyal Kharoti, Mujeeb ur Rahman, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen ul Haq and Abdullah Ahmadzai.

Three reserves are named: Shahidullah Kamal, Fareed Ahmad Malik and Ijaz Ahmadzai. The sources do not say who will lead Afghanistan's coaching staff, and give no details of the team's recent form or its plans for the series.

India's Reshaped Team

India will be captained by Shreyas Iyer, with Tilak Varma as vice-captain. Both AajTak and Dainik Bhaskar count eight changes from the squad India last picked, and list Rinku Singh, Suryansh Shedge, Harsh Dubey, Prabhsimran Singh, Prince Yadav, Yash Thakur, Mayank Yadav and Ashok Sharma among those left out.

The fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah returns after a knee injury. AajTak says the injury came during the England tour, while Dainik Bhaskar specifies it happened during India's one-day series against England and adds that Bumrah's last Twenty20 match was on March 8 against New Zealand, the final of the Twenty20 World Cup.

Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar and Harshit Rana will only be available if they clear fitness tests, both publications report. Hardik Pandya was not picked and is recovering from injury, according to Dainik Bhaskar.

Suryavanshi and the Asian Games Link

The 13-year-old opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi keeps his place for a fourth series in a row. Dainik Bhaskar reports he has 193 runs in six Twenty20 Internationals, including two half-centuries, and was player of the series on the Zimbabwe tour.

AajTak reports that the same 15-man India squad will represent the country at the Asian Games in Japan later this month. The sources do not say whether Afghanistan will field the same group beyond this series.