The BCCI announced a 16-strong squad for the Indian team ahead of the three-match T20 series against Afghanistan starting January 11 in Mohali. The squad contained a few pleasant surprises including a long-awaited return for the two senior pros, captain Rohit Sharma and his predecessor Virat Kohli. The duo hadn't played the T20 format for India for 14 months and the three-match series might tell a lot of things about how the Men in Blue's T20 World Cup squad could look like.
While these two were the main big inclusions, there were a few more changes in the setup. Since, there was no Hardik Pandya, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Suryakumar Yadav available for selection due to their respective injuries, the selectors added some really good backups for all three while there were a few notable omissions as well.
Here's a look at the full list of the changes in India's T20 squad since the last time they played the format in South Africa in December:
IN
As mentioned Rohit and Kohli were the two big inclusions and are likely to play at their regular spots - open and No.3 respectively. Sanju Samson was another notable inclusion and he might have to thank his match-winning century against South Africa in the ODI series decider. Samson's form coincided with Ishan Kishan's lack of runs in the format. Shivam Dube, who last played a T20 in the Asian Games in October, returned to the squad too while Axar Patel, who was surprisingly left out of the SA T20Is, is back as well.
OUT
Suryakumar Yadav and Rturaj Gaikwad were the two injured players, who are not part of the squad while Mohammed Siraj has likely been rested given there is a five-match Test series starting against England in less than three weeks' time. Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Deepak Chahar and Ravindra Jadeja have all faced axe from the side. Since Kohli and Axar returned, there was no place for Iyer and Jadeja and with the series being played at home, India went in with a pace-bowling all-rounder instead of a fourth pure pace option.
India's T20 squad for Afghanistan T20 series: Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Sanju Samson (wk), Shivam Dube, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Kuldeep Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, Avesh Khan, Mukesh Kumar
