Cricket T20: India to take on Afghanistan in 3rd & final T20I in Bengaluru

In Men’s Cricket, the third and final T-20 International of three match series between India and Afghanistan will be played at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on 17 Jan 2024, Wednesday. The match will begin at 7 pm.

Indian team has already taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series. India had defeated Afghanistan by six wickets in the second match in Indore. The hosts had won the first match in Mohali by six wickets.

“A win would be nice…” is how Jonathan Trott started off his press conference on Tuesday (January 16) in Bengaluru. His team has already lost the series but there’s a lot to play for, insisted the former England batter. His words must be revered as gospel truth within the confines of the Afghanistan dressing room as he led them to a highly impressive ODI World Cup campaign just a few months ago.

For Afghanistan to repeat that in the T20 version in June, the head coach already knows what they need to fine tune collectively. And the Bengaluru game could yet be used as a starting point before they play Sri Lanka in February and Ireland in March.

For India, this is the last T20I before the World Cup but that’s barely significant for what’s to follow between now and the marquee event in June. Four days after the third T20I, nearly half of this squad will be in Hyderabad for the start of a five-Test series against England that will go on till the second week of March. The next big indicator for the World Cup selection will be the two months that follow with the IPL.

Between Rohit Sharma getting his first runs of the series, Virat Kohli showing intent and Arshdeep Singh trying out a new leg-cutter to the left-handers, Wednesday’s game for India could thus boil down to individual context rather than the collective.

Squads:

India Squad: Rohit Sharma(c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma(w), Rinku Singh, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Ravi Bishnoi, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma, Kuldeep Yadav, Avesh Khan, Shubman Gill

Afghanistan Squad: Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Ibrahim Zadran(c), Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Najibullah Zadran, Karim Janat, Gulbadin Naib, Noor Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Naveen-ul-Haq, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Hazratullah Zazai, Fareed Ahmad Malik, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Ikram Alikhil, Qais Ahmad, Mohammad Saleem Safi, Rahmat Shah