Virat Kohli will miss India’s first Twenty20 International against Afghanistan on Thursday owing to personal obligations, according to head coach Rahul Dravid.
The star batter, however, will be available for the second and third T20Is later this week.
Kohli will return to India’s T20I squad for the first time since November 2022, and will meet the team in Indore before of the second match. While Dravid did not elaborate on Kohli’s absence from the series opener, the latter’s daughter Vamika turns three on Thursday.
The national selection committee named Kohli and Rohit Sharma to the squad for the three-match series against Afghanistan last week, which is India’s sole international T20 series before the T20 World Cup in June.
Dravid indicated that for the time being, the team management will stay with the opening combination of Rohit (who joined the training session later in the day) and Yashasvi Jaiswal.
“When you have a squad and a team, you have that flexibility to do whatever is required if that is in the best interest of the team and if that gives you a chance to succeed. Nothing is closed, but we are certainly happy with what Jaiswal has done as an opener for us and that gives us the left and right combination at the top,” Dravid said.
