Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bowl against India in the third and final T20I at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday, setting the tone for a match that had already lost its series suspense. Ibrahim Zadran made the call for a side that had already fallen 2-0 behind, while India went in with one change and the chance to complete a 3-0 sweep.
That is why the India national cricket team vs Afghanistan national cricket team match scorecard was being checked before a ball was bowled. India had already sealed the series, but Thursday still mattered because a win would finish the job cleanly, and Afghanistan were using the last game to chase a first victory of the tour. India brought in Yash Thakur for Arshdeep Singh, while Afghanistan made two changes, leaving out Noor Ahmad and Gulbadin Naib and bringing in Abdullah Ahmadzai and Noor Rahman, who was making his T20I debut.
The toss decision also fit the way Afghanistan had wanted to play the contest from the start. Zadran said his side had hoped to bowl first in the previous two matches as well but had lost the toss both times, and he backed the wicket to help the bowlers hold India in check. He also said Afghanistan had already lost the series but wanted to correct what had gone wrong and finish with a better performance. India, meanwhile, did not send out Vaibhav Sooryavanshi or Washington Sundar, and Shreyas Iyer said the side would have batted first anyway, so the toss did not force a change in plan.
The result of all that was a final T20I shaped as much by selection and intent as by the series scoreline. Afghanistan named Ibrahim Zadran, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Sediqullah Atal, Abdullah Ahmadzai, Darwish Rasooli, Noor Rahman, Azmatullah Omarzai, Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Fazalhaq Farooqi, while India went with Sanju Samson, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Shreyas Iyer, Tilak Varma, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Shivam Dube, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Yash Thakur and Jasprit Bumrah. What came next was the game itself, with Afghanistan trying to avoid a clean sweep and India chasing the series finish it had already put itself in position to claim.
