- The DDCA rejected a Delhi Traffic Police request to move Sunday’s India-Afghanistan T20I away from the BRICS Summit window.
- Sunday’s Delhi forecast shows a 55% rain chance climbing to about 89% by evening, with no reserve day scheduled.
- India has never lost to Afghanistan in nine T20Is and leads the head-to-head series 8-0-1.
- Pace bowler Harshit Rana is out with a thigh strain, and Yash Thakur replaces him in India’s squad.
NEW DELHI – The Delhi and District Cricket Association rejected a Delhi Traffic Police request Thursday to move Sunday’s India-Afghanistan T20I series opener away from this week’s BRICS Summit, keeping the match at Arun Jaitley Stadium on its original date.
DDCA Rejects Reschedule Request
The security footprint around this week’s BRICS Summit, which runs Sept. 11-13 in the capital, prompted Delhi Traffic Police to ask the DDCA about moving Sunday’s match. Arun Jaitley Stadium sits about five kilometers from the summit venue. The DDCA’s answer, posted Thursday, was “no postponement.”
The decision keeps Sunday’s fixture, and the online sports betting interest around it, on schedule.
Rain Risk Jumps To 89%, No Reserve Day
Sunday’s forecast turned sharply worse in an update issued Friday citing the India Meteorological Department, with rain chances at 55% for the day climbing to about 89% by evening. The match is scheduled for a 7 p.m. start.
There is no reserve day built into the fixture. A washout ends the match with no result rather than a makeup date, voiding any wager on Sunday’s outcome placed at sportsbooks instead of settling it later.
A Series India Has Never Lost
Afghanistan has played India nine times in T20 cricket and never won, with the closest call a tied T20I in Bengaluru in January 2024 that India took in a second Super Over. India leads the all-time series 8-0-1.
Afghanistan’s clearest way into the match is stylistic, not statistical. India’s likely top and middle order runs left-handed through Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube, and Afghanistan’s off-spinners Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Mohammad Nabi turn the ball away from that shape.
Rashid Khan, the format’s all-time leading wicket-taker with 193 T20I wickets, anchors the same attack from the other side. That spin matchup, not the head-to-head record, gives Afghanistan its best route to competing in the middle overs, and Khan is the most dangerous bowler on either side.
India’s Rough Stretch, Afghanistan’s Long Layoff
Shreyas Iyer took over the India captaincy from Suryakumar Yadav after the World Cup, and the stumble happened on his watch. India lost 2-0 in Ireland, then 4-0 in England, a stretch that included a 125-run defeat at Trent Bridge, when India was bowled out for 76, its second-lowest T20I total ever. That was seven T20Is without a win, the longest such run in team history, before India swept Zimbabwe 3-0 in late July and reclaimed the No. 1 ranking.
Afghanistan brings its own gap in form. Sunday is Afghanistan’s first T20I in nearly seven months, and Ibrahim Zadran leads the side for the first time as full-time captain after Afghanistan missed the Super Eight stage at the World Cup.
Rana Out, Thakur In
India’s pace attack changed this week. A thigh injury, a strained rectus femoris picked up in a Sept. 7 match simulation, costs Harshit Rana this series and the Asian Games behind it. Yash Thakur replaces him after taking four wickets in two T20Is on debut in Zimbabwe in July. Jasprit Bumrah, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar all passed fitness checks this week and remain available. Neither team had named a starting XI as of Friday.
This series doubles as India’s last tuneup before the Asian Games. Largely the same squad travels to Japan later this month for a one-off T20I against the hosts on Sept. 22, then the men’s cricket competition beginning Sept. 24. The DDCA has the series continuing Tuesday and Thursday at the same ground, unchanged by this week’s forecast or the summit.
