India vs Afghanistan: Focus on Virat Kohli's T20I return as Men in Blue eye series-clinching win in Indore

Having begun their year with back-to-back wins, albeit in different formats, Team India face Afghanistan in the second of three T20Is in Indore on Sunday aiming to clinch the series with a game to spare. Rohit Sharma and Co began the year with a historic victory in the New Year’s Test against South Africa in Cape Town, and managed to recover from a rusty start to beat Afghanistan in the first T20I in Mohali on Thursday. They head to the second T20I as firm favourites for a victory that will give them their first series win of the year.

Afghanistan might not be the most fancied of teams in the international game but they are every bit a competitive unit in the shortest format thanks to their players plying their trade in T20 leagues all over the world, including and especially the Indian Premier League. An India victory in Sunday’s fixture therefore, should not be a matter of automatic assumption in the build-up to the game.

That, however, might just be the case for many an Indian experts and fans, whose focus instead will likely be fixed on the return of one Virat Kohli to Twenty20 Internationals.

Both Rohit and Kohli had been selected for this series and were set to make their comeback into the Indian team after more than a year. Only Rohit featured in Thursday’s match however, with Kohli missing out of the game due to personal reasons.

Preps ✅#TeamIndia READY for the 2⃣nd #INDvAFG T20I in Indore