Rohit returns to captain India Twenty20 side against Afghanistan

India’s Rohit Sharma will skipper the upcoming three-match T20I series against Afghanistan, fresh from celebrating the quickest win in Test history in South Africa, India’s cricket board said yesterday.
Earlier in January, Rohit led India to thrash South Africa by seven wickets in the second Test, a match which took only 107 overs and was completed on the second afternoon.
Sharma now returns to lead his team in the T20 format, alongside key player Virat Kohli.
Both last played a T20I in November 2022, when India lost to England in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup in Australia, choosing to prioritise Test cricket and ODIs in the lead-up to the World Test Championship final and the ODI World Cup in 2023.
Their selection now, which comes after India’s chairman of selectors Ajit Agarkar flew to South Africa during the New Year’s Test in Cape Town, means that both players are back in India’s plans for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the USA.
India have mostly been led by Hardik in T20Is since the 2022 T20 World Cup, and Suryakumar stood in as captain after Hardik injured his ankle during the 2023 ODI World Cup. Suryakumar led India in the five-match T20I series at home against Australia and the three T20Is in South Africa in December but has also been ruled out for a couple of months because of an ankle injury he picked up in South Africa. Both Hardik and Suryakumar are expected to return for the IPL in March.
The 2024 T20 World Cup takes place in the West Indies and the USA in June.
The three-match T20 series opens in Mohali on January 11, followed by Indore on January 14 and Bengaluru on January 17, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) said.
Squad: Rohit Sharma (capt), 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