Why Is Rohit Sharma Not Leading India vs Afghanistan? Stand-In Skipper KL Rahul Answers

There was surprise in store for the fans at the toss of the India-Afghanistan Asia Cup match as full-time captain Rohit Sharma did not come out for the toss. Instead, KL Rahul came out as the stand-in India captain. India are already out of the contention for the final. When asked about the reason behind Rohit not coming out for the toss, Rahul said: "Rohit just wants to take a break considering the tough conditions here, and the World Cup ahead."

The Indian team also had other changes too. "Yuzi (Chahal), Rohit and Hardik miss out. Chahar, Karthik and Axar come in. Even coming into this tournament, we had the T20 World Cup in mind. It's a good learning for us to play such a tournament before the World Cup. We have learnt a few things from the losses. Trying to finalise the roles that each individual will play in the World Cup," he said.

Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi, who won the toss and opted to field, said: "We will bowl first. We left the stadium immediately and went to the hotel last night. Had some green tea and took a few sleeping pills, it was a tough night. We have played well in the tournament, we could have won the last two games. We will try our best to play some good cricket."

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India (Playing XI): KL Rahul(c), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant(w), Deepak Hooda, Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Deepak Chahar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh

Afghanistan (Playing XI): Hazratullah Zazai, Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Ibrahim Zadran, Najibullah Zadran, Mohammad Nabi(c), Karim Janat, Rashid Khan, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Fareed Ahmad Malik, Fazalhaq Farooqi