Rashid underwent lower-back surgery a couple of months ago, he travelled to Chandigarh with the team and was even seen bowling in the training sessions over the last couple of days.

New Delhi: Afghanistan star leg-spinner Rashid Khan has been ruled out from the T20I series against India which will start from January 11 at Inderjit Singh Bindra Stadium/ Mohali Stadium. The leg-spinner is out of action since the recently concluded ODI World Cup.

Rashid underwent lower-back surgery a couple of months ago, he travelled to Chandigarh with the team and was even seen bowling in the training sessions over the last couple of days but on the eve of the series opener, Afghanistan skipper Ibrahim Zadran confirmed that the star spinner is recovering and will take a bit of time before he is available for selection.

“He is not totally fit, but is travelling with the team,” Zadran said. “We hope that he gets fit as soon as we expect him to. He’s doing his rehab with the doctor, and we will miss him in the series…”

Zadran, however, believed that even without Rashid, there’s enough firepower in his team. “Without Rashid, there are a few players that we have trust in. I can say, they will play good cricket,” Zadran said. “Others have also played a lot of cricket and I am sure they will perform well. Without Rashid, we will struggle because his experience is crucial to all of us, but this is cricket and you need to be ready for any kind of situation…”

On the other hand, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli are making a comeback in the T20Is after 14 months both will be seen in action against Afghanistan.

This will be India’s last T20I contest before the upcoming T20 World Cup which is scheduled to start from June 1 in USA and West Indies.

Squads:

India: Rohit Sharma (captain), 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.

Aghanistan: Ibrahim Zadran (captain), Rahmanullah Gurbaz (WK), Ikram Alikhil (WK), Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmat Shah, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi, Karim Janat, Azmatullah Omarzai, Sharafuddin Ashraf, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Fareed Ahmad, Naveen Ul Haq, Noor Ahmad, Mohammad Saleem, Qais Ahmad, Gulbadin Naib and Rashid Khan.