Afghanistan bowl; India pick Thakur for Arshdeep

Shreyas Iyer lost a toss for a change but got what he wanted anyway. Having won the series, India wanted to test themselves by batting first, which Afghanistan offered them as the thing to do in night games, especially in Delhi, is to chase.

India resisted wholesale changes to their XI, sticking to their opening combination and also continuing with Jasprit Bumrah, who just came back from injury and would have wanted more game time. While Vaibhav Sooryavanshi didn't get a single game in the series, India did make one change, bringing in Yash Thakur for Arshdeep Singh.

That also meant India stuck with playing three specialist bowlers and four allrounders, which gives them a batting option at No. 8. Axar Patel has been in good form and has completed his quota in both the matches.

More significant was the dropping of Gulbadin Naib, who failed to make any impression in this series. It made way for an international debut for the 25-year-old wicketkeeper-batter Noor ul Rahman.

India 1 Abhishek Sharma, 2 Sanju Samson (wk), 3 Ishan Kishan, 4 Shreyas Iyer (capt.), 5 Tilak Varma, 6 Axar Patel, 7 Shivam Dube, 8 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 9 Ravi Bishnoi, 10 Yash Thakur, 11 Jasprit Bumrah

Afghanistan 1 Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), 2 Ibrahim Zadran (capt.), 3 Sediqullah Atal, 4 Noor Ul Rahman, 5 Darwish Rasooli, 6 Azmatullah Omarzai, 7 Mohammad Nabi, 8 Rashid Khan, 9 Mujeeb Ur Rahman, 10 Fazalhaq Farooqi, 11 Abdollah Omarzai