NEW DELHI: India skipper Rohit Sharma won the toss and opted to bowl first against Afghanistan in the first T20 International in Mohali on Thursday.
Sanju Samson, Avesh Khan and Kuldeep Yadav have been left out while Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was finalised as one of the openers along with the captain on the eve of the first game, will miss the match due to injury.
Rohit said at the toss that Yashasvi “didn’t pull off well”. The Indian Board (BCCI) also gave an update stating Yashashvi was unavailable for the selection due to a sore right groin.

“We will bowl first. No particular reason, the pitch is good and it doesn’t change a lot here. A lot to gain from the 3 games, we haven’t had too much T20 cricket leading to the World Cup, there’s IPL, but this is an international game and we’ll try to achieve a few things. I had a chat with Rahul bhai regarding the combination going forward and what we need to do as a group. That’s what we’ll try to do, but winning is the most important thing. Sanju Samson, Avesh, Yashasvi (who didn’t pull off well) and Kuldeep miss out,” Rohit said after winning the toss.
“We wanted to bowl first as well, but it’s not a big problem, we’ll try and execute our plans. This is a massive opportunity to get experience ahead of the T20 World Cup. We’ll try and play some positive cricket. Noor Ahamad, Sharafuddin, Saleem Saifi aren’t playing, forgot the rest of the guys,” Afghanistan skipper Ibrahim Zadran said at the toss.
Teams:
India: Rohit Sharma (capt), Shubman Gill, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar
Afghanistan: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran (capt), Rahmat Shah, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran, Karim Janat, Gulbadin Naib, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mujeeb Ur Rahman.