Indian captain Rohit Sharma won the crucial toss in the second T20I game against Afghanistan and decided to bowl first at Indore's Holkar Cricket Stadium. As expected, India made two changes to their playing XIs with Virat Kohli and Yashasvi Jaiswal coming in for Tilak Varma and Shubman Gill.
Afghanistan captain Ibrahim Zadran also made one change to their playing eleven after a six-wicket defeat in the first game. Young spin all-rounder replaced the veteran batter Rahmat Shah in a tactical change for the travelling side.
Virat Kohli missed the opening game in Mohali due to personal reasons while Yashasvi had suffered a minor groin injury. But the duo are straight back in the team replacing youngsters Gill and Tilak who failed to make any impact in the first match.
Kohli, 35, last played a T20I game during India's defeat to England in T20 World Cup 2022 semi-final. With regulars Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav and Ruturaj Gaikwad missing out due to injuries, Indian management was reportedly forced to consider veteran Rohit and Virat for the only T20I series before the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 in June.
India Playing XI: Rohit Sharma(c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar
Afghanistan Playing XI: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Ibrahim Zadran (c), Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran, Karim Janat, Gulbadin Naib, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mujeeb Ur Rahman
After winning the toss, Rohit talked about the impact youngsters have made in T20Is ahead of the upcoming World Cup.
"We are gonna bowl first, no particular reason," Rohit said. "Just nature of the ground especially the small boundaries. The things we were talking in our meeting, we were able to come out and execute that in the first game. We asked for specific roles from the guys and they performed accordingly. Not much, they (youngsters) don't have any baggage and it is all about backing them, allow them to be free on the ground. We will do things keeping the WC in mind but we know results are also important. Kohli and Jaiswal back for Gill and Tilak."
