Afghanistan will host India for three T20Is in September ahead of the Japan Asian Games. It appears that the series has been organised for preparations for both teams. The men’s cricket event starts in late September.
According to a report in ESPNcricinfo, the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi will host the matches on September 13, 15 and 17. Although Afghanistan have hosted many teams before in India in Dehradun, Greater Noida and Lucknow, this will be the first instance that they will be hosting India. The Central Asian team does not have the required cricket infrastructure back home, and also plays its home matches in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
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Recently, Afghanistan toured India for one Test and three ODIs in June. They lost all of them. The series was played in very hot conditions, which drew criticism from many quarters. The 2026 Indian Premier League season ended on May 31, and in less than a week’s time, the Indian team was at the New Chandigarh Stadium to host Afghanistan in the one-off Test. Then three ODIs followed. After which India, under brand new captain Shreyas Iyer, travelled to Ireland and were shocked by the minnows in the two T20Is that they played at Stormont, Belfast. They tasted further humiliation in England, where they lost the five-game T20I series 4-0. In the following ODI series, under the leadership of Shubman Gill, India were expected to do well in view of the presence of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Jasprit Bumrah in the squad but that wasn’t the case as India lost the three-game contest 2-1 despite leading 1-0 at one time.
India have announced a very strong strong squad for the Asian Games. The men’s event will be held between September 24 and October 1. Hopefully, the three Afghanistan matches will provide them with enough practice ahead of an important event. Prior to these matches, India will be in Sri Lanka for a two-Test series. Cricket was introduced to the Asian Games for the first time in 2010 in Guangzhou, and Incheon, four years later, hosted it again. But then it was dropped before it staged a return in 2023.
India men’s T20I squad for Asian Games
Shreyas Iyer (capt), Sanju Samson (wk), Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wk), Shivam Dube, Tilak Varma (vice-capt), Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Varun Chakravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Harshit Rana, Arshdeep Singh, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Jasprit Bumrah