Washington Sundar cleared for Afghanistan T20Is as Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana & Nitish Reddy await final test
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Washington Sundar cleared for Afghanistan T20Is as Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana & Nitish Reddy await final test originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Washington Sundar has cleared his fitness test and is available for India's T20I series against Afghanistan in New Delhi.
- Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana and Nitish Kumar Reddy are still undergoing fitness tests, with final results expected by Wednesday.
- Hardik Pandya remains unavailable for the series due to a leg strain sustained during the IPL earlier this year.
India vs Afghanistan T20Is: Washington Sundar passes fitness test; Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana and Nitish Reddy hang in balance
Washington Sundar is reportedly fit and available for the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan in New Delhi.
According to The Times of India, the off-spinning allrounder, who sat out the two-Test series in Sri Lanka because of a hamstring problem, has come through his fitness assessment and is cleared to play.
Sundar went through a match simulation exercise at the BCCI's Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on September 4, and the medical team gave him the green light after that.
However, Jasprit Bumrah, Harshit Rana and Nitish Reddy will still have to undergo another fitness test, and the reports will confirm their participation against Afghanistan.
A source told TOI the specifics: "Sundar was cleared by the BCCI's medical team after his fitness test, which included a match simulation exercise, at the BCCI Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru on Sept 4. Bumrah, Rana and Reddy underwent their first match simulation on Monday and will undergo their second on Wednesday at the CoE. After that, the CoE will provide a fitness report on the trio."
That means India won't have a complete picture of their available squad until just four days before the first T20I gets underway.
MORE: Why BCCI wants Jasprit Bumrah to play Ranji Trophy or India A match before New Zealand Test series
BCCI/Creimas
The injury histories behind the fitness concerns
Each of the three players waiting on clearance has a slightly different injury story. Jasprit Bumrah picked up a knee injury on the field during India's white-ball tour of England, which ruled him out of the subsequent Test series in Sri Lanka.
Harshit Rana suffered a hamstring problem during the England tour back in July, while Nitish Kumar Reddy has been dealing with a quadriceps injury that kept him out of both the UK and Sri Lanka assignments.
MORE: IND vs AFG T20I series 2026: Pandya unlikely to feature after fresh injury
India have named a largely full-strength T20I group under Shreyas Iyer for this Afghanistan series, and it's almost identical to the squad that will travel to Japan for the Asian Games immediately after. The one significant absentee, by design rather than selection, is Hardik Pandya, who is still working his way back from a leg strain he picked up during the IPL earlier this year.
India's squad for the Afghanistan T20I series:
Shreyas Iyer (c), Abhishek Sharma, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, Sanju Samson (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma (vc), Shivam Dube, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar*, Varun Chakaravarthy, Ravi Bishnoi, Jasprit Bumrah*, Arshdeep Singh, Harshit Rana*.
(*subject to fitness)
India's injury management must be sharper going forward
Washington Sundar's clearance is welcome, but the fact that India is heading into a series not knowing whether three key players are available is a recurring concern. Bumrah in particular is too important to this team, across all formats, for his workload and recovery to keep resulting in late fitness scrambles ahead of each new assignment.
The BCCI review meeting spoke about better FTP planning, but fixing scheduling alone won't be enough if rehabilitation protocols and return-to-play timelines aren't more clearly managed and communicated from the start. India need their best players available, not conditionally named and waiting on a Wednesday fitness report.
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