India's selectors have named the T20I squad to face Afghanistan this month, and the headline names are the ones returning from injury rather than any new face. Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar and Harshit Rana are all back in the group — though all three, along with Nitish Kumar Reddy, are included pending final fitness clearance from the BCCI medical team.
Shreyas Iyer continues as captain, with Tilak Varma as vice-captain. The three-match T20I series against Afghanistan will be played entirely at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, on September 13, 15 and 17. The full squad: Shreyas Iyer (c), Tilak Varma (vc), Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh and Harshit Rana.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi retains his spot on the back of a run of form that has been hard for selectors to ignore. He answered a difficult T20I debut series in England with two half-centuries during India's 3-0 sweep of Zimbabwe in July, and has since gone on to break a 57-year-old Duleep Trophy record, becoming the youngest player to score a fifty in the tournament's history at 15 years and 157 days. Between the white-ball form and the red-ball statement, his continued place in this squad looks less like a punt on potential and more like a selection selectors are increasingly comfortable defending on results.
The fitness caveats attached to Bumrah, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Harshit Rana are worth taking seriously rather than treating as a formality. Bumrah, in particular, is working back from a knee injury picked up during India's ODI series in England that also kept him out of the two-Test series in Sri Lanka — a longer layoff than a routine workload-management call. Naming all four "subject to fitness" gives India's medical staff room to make a late call without having to reconvene the full selection committee. If all four are passed fit, this becomes close to India's strongest available T20I attack; if any are withdrawn, the door opens for uncapped seam and spin options waiting in the wings.
The same core group is also lined up for India's campaign at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, from September 24 to October 3 — a tournament BCCI had reportedly weighed sending a second-string side to before opting for a fuller squad. Run back-to-back, the Afghanistan series and the Asian Games effectively function as one extended assignment for this group, with Iyer and Varma retaining the leadership roles across both.
Afghanistan arrive with plenty of their own T20I firepower — Rashid Khan, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Noor Ahmad, Mohammad Nabi and Gulbadin Naib all feature under new full-time captain Ibrahim Zadran, with pacer Naveen-ul-Haq back from a shoulder injury. On paper this is a strong Afghanistan side rather than a routine assignment, which makes the fitness questions hanging over India's squad even more relevant heading into the series opener.
More squad and fitness updates will follow as September 13 approaches. Track fixtures and build fantasy lineups on SportGod's free contests, and check AI predictions once the series gets underway.
Squad names, series dates and fitness-clearance details are verified against same-day reporting of the India squad announcement, current as of September 2, 2026.
Try Sport God AI live
Live scores, AI predictions, and fantasy — free during IPL 2026.