Former India cricketer turned commentator Ajinkya Rahane opined on the omission of two players for the Afghanistan series, who were part of the 2026 T20 World Cup-winning squad. Team India will face Afghanistan in a three-match T20I series starting Sunday, September 13. Rinku Singh and Kuldeep Yadav, who were part of the T20 World Cup-winning squad, were dropped from the Afghanistan series. While he expressed wanting to see both players get a chance, Ajinkya Rahane added that the exclusion of a player or two would not make much of a difference to the team’s performance overall.

“I don’t think the exclusion of one or two players (Rinku and Kuldeep) will affect the performance of the team. Personally, I want Rinku to get a chance, as he has shown consistency in the IPL and even in the UPT20 league. He has shown it in his batting and has contributed whenever he got the opportunity. We must remember that his contributions have come at numbers five, six, or seven, and these are very difficult numbers for a batter in T20. I do want to see him and Kuldeep back. But it will not affect the team’s performance, as all players are equally equipped skill-wise,” he said in a video on his Hindi YouTube channel.

Ajinkya Rahane backed Team India to win the series. While he added that Afghanistan would pose a fight, he added that beating India in India in this format would be challenging for Afghanistan.

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“I feel the Indian team will win the series. It is difficult for Afghanistan, or any other team, when they are playing India in India. The team has gone through and followed the process to get to the stage they are at. The system and BCCI also have to be credited. Afghanistan will fight, but you cannot keep India behind in this format at the moment,” he said.

India squad for Afghanistan T20I series –

Shreyas Iyer (C), Tilak Varma (VC), Sanju Samson (WK), Ishan Kishan (WK), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Suryavanshi, Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah, Arshdeep Singh, Yash Thakur