Asia Cup 2022: Here’s why Rohit Sharma is not playing the Super 4 clash against Afghanistan

It wasn’t the regular Rohit Sharma walking out for the toss and instead, KL Rahul came up and surprised many on September 8 in Dubai. Although, the game against Afghanistan is a dead rubber, Rohit was never a candidate to be on the bench. The 35-year-old scored a fantastic 72 in the previous game against Sri Lanka and hence, he was the man in form coming into the final fixture.  

However, the management had different plans as Rahul cleared that Rohit has been rested for the game due to the tough weather conditions in UAE. Rahul also added that the other players needs to be given an opportunity to identify their roles ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup in Australia.

"Rohit just wants to take a break considering the tough conditions here, and the World Cup ahead. Playing back-to-back is not easy in these conditions. We're trying to finalise the roles that each individual will play in the World Cup," KL Rahul said at the toss. 

"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," he added.

Dinesh Karthik, Axar Patel and Deepak Chahar come into the playing XI

India have made three changes to the XI the line-up that played against Sri Lanka, as they included the likes Deepak Chahar, Dinesh Karthik and Axar Patel for Hardik Pandya and YuzVendra Chahal. Meanwhile, Afghanistan won the toss and decided to field first with no changes in their playing XI.  

With Rohit out of the playing XI, Virat Kohli came out to open the innings alongside Rahul. Meanwhile, Axar Patel has got his first game in the tournament after coming in as replacement for Ravindra Jadeja. 

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