The Indian team management and the cricket fans will once again indulge in the Vaibhav Sooryavanshi vs Sanju Samson debate as India resumes T20I action on Sunday.
India will take on Afghanistan in a three-match T20I series from September 13, to be played in Delhi, with Afghanistan being the designated host of this rubber.
The BCCI had picked the strongest squad possible from the available players, with Jasprit Bumrah, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Varun Chakravarthy making comebacks from injuries. Hardik Pandya and Harshit Rana will miss the IND vs AFG series.
Samson will also return to the T20I fold after being surprisingly omitted from the Zimbabwe tour, as T20I is the only format he currently plays for India.
In Zimbabwe, Sooryavanshi made his first big mark on international cricket. The teenager blasted two fifties in the three-match series and returned home with the Man of the Series award.
All eyeballs will stick on the 15-year-old Sooryavanshi, but the management, headed by Gautam Gambhir and Shreyas Iyer, will potentially have to once again make the call of either benching Sooryavanshi or Samson.
Both players have strong cases to be selected in the India playing XI for 1st T20I, but it seems that the young left-hander will get the nod over the veteran Kerala right-hander.
IND vs AFG: Vaibhav Sooryavanshi Or Sanju Samson – Who Will Open In 1st T20I?
Senior journalist Vaibhav Bhola of News 24 has claimed that Abhishek Sharma is the team’s first-choice T20I opener, and he will be partnered by Sooryavanshi in the 1st T20I against Afghanistan.
This all but means that Samson, who was the Man of the Tournament at the T20 World Cup and cracked two centuries in the IPL, will be benched in Delhi on Sunday.
Samson’s fortunes have turned cruelly since his heroics at the ICC event earlier this year. The Kerala opener fulfilled the promise of his talent and backing when he hammered three consecutive half-centuries in the last stages of the T20 World Cup and looked set for a prosperous T20I stint in the coming two years, leading into the LA28 Olympics and T20 World Cup 2028 in Australia and New Zealand.
However, Sooryavanshi knocked the door down on the selectors through an unbelievable IPL 2026 campaign and walked into the India squad for the UK tour.
It needed only three failures of Samson for the management to ditch the right-handed and hand the lefty his T20I debut. Vaibhav also had three low scores in England before being dropped for Samson in the last T20I on the UK trip.
Samson was then inexplicably excluded from the Zimbabwe tour, where Sooryavanshi made his chances count.
Now, the duo is pitted against each other once again as India face Afghanistan and then fly to Japan for the Asian Games. Sooryavanshi may get the opportunity ahead of Samson against Afghanistan, but Samson has a long experience of being overlooked by the national team managements and selectors.
When is the India vs Afghanistan 1st T20I?
The India vs Afghanistan T20I series will kick off on Sunday, September 13, in Delhi. The match is scheduled to start at 7 PM IST, with the toss scheduled for 6.30 PM.
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