Why Rohit Sharma is not playing Super 4 clash against Afghanistan? know HERE

India skipper Rohit Sharma was not part of the playing eleven for the Men in Blue as vice-captain KL Rahul came in for the toss at the Dubai International Cricket stadium on Thursday (September 8), for India's Super 4 clash against Afghanistan. With both teams being knocked out of the tournament, India made 3 changes from their squad from the last game - Dinesh Karthik, Deepak Chahar and Axar Patel got in place for Rohit Sharma, Hardik Pandya and Yuzvendra Chahal.

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After winning the toss, Mohammad Nabi elected to bowl first as most captains would like at the Dubai stadium and KL Rahul revealed the reason why Team India captain Rohit Sharma is not playing today.

Rahul Dravid said "Rohit Sharma is such a great guy to work with, he is very relaxed and had very good vision to take the team forward".

— Johns. (@CricCrazyJohns) September 8, 2022

"We wanted to bat first. We want to challenge ourselves as a batting unit. Rohit wants to take a break, playing back-to-back is not easy in these conditions. Yuzi (Chahal), Rohit and Hardik miss out. Chahar, Karthik and Axar come in. Even coming into this tournament, we had the T20 World Cup in mind. 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. Trying to finalise the roles that each individual will play in the World Cup," said Indian skipper KL Rahul at the toss.

Fans were not happy with the Indian skipper not playing against Afghanistan on Thursday. Netizens lashed out on the captain, saying that if he cannot play matches for India in an important tournament like Asia Cup then what is the need of him playing at all. Some fans also said that Rohit and other Indian players do not feel fatigue and tiredness when it comes to playing games for their respective IPL teams, which is a two-month long tournament but they get burntout playing the international matches. (Check reactions HERE)